Congress secretary and incharge Madhya Pradesh party affairs V. Hanumantha Rao on Saturday described his party’s defeat in the just concluded Jabera Assembly byelection as a result of massive misuse of power and electoral malpractices by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Mr Rao was addressing a press conference at the Congress headquarters here. He said that the Congress workers in Madhya Pradesh are fully geared for a trial of strength with the BJP when the state goes to polls in 2013.
Mr Rao said that the Congress party has every chance to win the next Assembly election in Madhya Pradesh as well as Chhattisgarh.
He said that the Congress party would go all out to expose the Bharatiya Janata Party governments in both these states for irregularities in the implementation of the Right to Education Act, the PDS scheme and also for the “siphoning away of funds” received from the Centre for the Congress-led UPA government’s flagship programmes.
The state government would also be put into the dock for the tardy pace of distribution of land ownership rights to the tribals and forest dwellers.
Mr Rao said that by appointing Union minister Kantilal Bhuria, who is a tribal leader, as state party president and Ajay Singh, an “upper caste Thakur” as Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has given a clear message that the Congress wants to take every one together for the next election.
Mr Rao took a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party saying that they tried to hijack the Lokpal issue but have done nothing to stop corruption in BJP-ruled states.
He also slammed yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s protest dharna in Delhi and said it was unnecessary after the government had already accepted 90 per cent of the demands being raised by the civil society.
He also lashed out at the state BJP for denying admissions to students from Kashmir.
This speaks volumes of their secular credentials, he went on to observe.