The upcoming assembly elections in Gujarat is a test for both the BJP and the Congress. While the former is trying to wrestle anti-incumbency, the latter is doing its best to try and stay relevant in the national political stage. And what better way to do so than etch a victory in the home state and bastion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Congress as a result is trying hard, or too hard one might say, going by the below the belt tactics it is using in its election campaign.
We had recently reported how Rahul Gandhi had lied not once, not twice but thrice during Gujarat election rallies.
First in September he lied about Sardar Patel’s Statue of Unity being made in China, despite the clarification being issued by L&T that most of the statue will be built in India, with only the bronze cladding in the form of bronze plates, comprising of about 9% of total project cost, will be sourced from China.
Then just the next day he claimed that PM Modi had waived off loan worth Rs. 1.3 lakh crore for 15 industrialists, which was again debunked by us.
After a bit of a lull, he was back again in October by lying about the financial dealing of Amit Shah’s son, an allegation which was thoroughly debunked by us prior to Rahul Gandhi’s statement.
Now it seems that this habit of Rahul Gandhi has rubbed off on former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who to some people’s surprise, has started campaigning in Gujarat.
On Wednesday, news reports emerged which quoted Manmohan Singh saying that Narendra Modi had never met him over the Sardar Sarovar Dam issue while the latter was still Gujarat’s chief minister. These were his exact words, “Modiji never held any meeting with me about the issue of the dam”.
This rebuttal comes after Narendra Modi claimed in Vadodara that every time he used to visit PM Manmohan SIngh to make a representation about the dam, the latter used to express ignorance about it’s stalled work.
Soon various Twitter users [1][2], took notice of Manmohan Singh’s statement and dug up reports which claimed that Modi had indeed met PM Manmohan Singh, not once but twice to discuss the Sardar Sarovar Dam project:
- As per one such report Modi met Manmohan Singh back in 2009 to demand that Sardar Sarovar Project be declared a National project
- As per another report Modi had again brought up the issue of Sardar Sarovar dam in 2013 while meeting Manmohan Singh. In this meeting, then CM of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, spoke about building a sluice gate on the dam and asked Manmohan Singh to provide clearance as soon as possible.
So clearly unlike what Manmohan Singh claims, Narendra Modi indeed held a meeting with with him on a couple of occasions in order to felicitate the Sardar Sarovar Project.
This is not the only blunder Manmohan Singh has made in Gujarat so far. He has also made a statement that the upcoming Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project is an “exercise in vanity” and that the government’s priorities are misplaced.
Soon after his statement, people didn’t hold back from reminding Manmohan Singh that it was him who actually gave the project a green signal while being the Prime Minister. On top of it after his 2013 bilateral summit with Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, a joint statement was released which said :
“The two Prime Ministers decided that the two sides will co-finance a joint feasibility study of high speed railway system on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route”
So clearly back then Manmohan Singh didn’t feel that the bullet train was an “exercise in vanity” and had been pretty enthusiastic about the whole idea.
It remains to be seen whether in the coming days Manmohan Singh would become more accurate in his statements or whether he would still continue to spread lies, thereby further damaging his reputation in the eyes of the people.
