While addressing an election rally in Lakhimpur (Assam) Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi said “UPA government has fulfilled all promises made to the people five years ago. The government had promised to work for poor people, Dalits and for the backward classes.” Congress General Secretary said that the biggest promise made by the UPA government was that of Employment Guarantee Scheme. Through this millions of people have been given employment. He added “the UPA government carried out loan waiver programme for poor farmers and loans worth Rs 70,000 crores were waived. Mid-day meal programmes for school going children of this country is another big achievement of the UPA government.” He said that Assam has a sizeable population of tribal people and the government has enacted a law to ensure their rights on the forestland. 

Congress General Secretary said “Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has a special relationship with Assam and the country is moving at a fast pace under his leadership.” He said “compared to the NDA regime, India’s GDP has registered faster growth during UPA’s rule. And this has happened because Congress Party has focused on poor people.” He criticized BJP for being anti-poor and said that this is the fundamental difference between the Congress and the BJP. He said “five years ago, NDA had said that India was shining but India was shining only for some people, not for all. That is why people rejected that idea and showed them the door.” 

Rahul Gandhi said that India could not move forward without the progress of the poor people. “Till there is single poor person in this country, India cannot shine,” he said. 

He criticized BJP for their charge that Manmhohan Singh was a weak Prime Minister. Rahul Gandhi said that during NDA’s rule, terrorist attacked our Parliament and killed people. He asked opposition leader L K Advani why he did not know anything about Kandhar. He said that either Advani was not telling truth or he did not have the trust of his Prime Minister. 

Rahul Gandhi concluded by saying that the UPA government is focusing on road connectivity in North- East India and more funds would be allocated to stop floods in the region.