LUCKNOW, Oct 22:
Huge turnout during the inaugural public rally of BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has set a difficult ‘benchmark’ for other political parties in Uttar Pradesh.
Leaders of the ruling Samajwadi Party, which is starting its rally from Azamgarh on October 29, are claiming that the rally would surpass the turnout of the BJP’s Kanpur rally.
Similarly, Congress has also stepped up its efforts to attract more crowd during party vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s rallies at Hamirpur and Salempur on October 30.
Though both the SP and the Congress had claimed on October 19, the day of Mr Modi’s Kanpur rally that it was a flop and there was no crowd, they are now leaving no stone unturned to beat the Kanpur rally.
BJP state spokesperson Vijay Bahadur Pathak said here today the Kanpur rally was a benchmark for all political parties in the state and the next meeting at Jhansi on October 25 will set another record.
“The statement by SP leaders that the Azamgarh public meeting of Mulayam Singh Yadav would break the record of BJP’s Kanpur rally, it vindicates the record attendence in a public meeting in the state,” he said.
Mr Pathak said all the other political parties in the state are now following Mr Modi in attracting the people and making all out efforts to make their rallies at par with the BJP.
“We challenge the SP with the state machinery and the Congress with the Central government machinery to bring a similar crowd in their rallies. The crowd in Mr Modi’s rally was spontaneous and responsive which other parties cannot do,” he said.
Samajwadi Party spokesperson and UP jail minister Rajendra Choudhury said here today there is no comparison between Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mr Modi in UP.
Mr Yadav is a ground level politician in the state and people love him for his words and integrity. People from cross section of the society loves to hear him and thus his rally at Azamgarh on October 29 would draw several lakhs of people,” he claimed.
Mr Choudhury alleged that the BJP was spending crores for bringing the crowd and even government officials from Gujarat are being given task to bring people from that state.
UP Congress alleged that there was just around some thousand of people in the BJP’s Kanpur rally but by managing the media, the party was patting its own back.
“Most of the spectators during the Kanpur rally was drawn from the workers of several spiritual guru ashrams and they were paid handsome to attend the rally,” alleged UP Congress spokesperson Amarnath Agarwal.
He claimed that the Congress was never interested in bringing people to the rallies of Mr Gandhi or others by paying them. “ The Nehru-Gandhi family is loved by the people of the state and they come by their own to hear them,” he said.
The Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP), the other major political party in the state, has neither launched their election campaign or public rallies nor they have given any reaction to Mr Modi’s Kanpur rally.
(UNI)
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