‘Rahul lives in a cocoon’, BJP targets Gandhi for attack on Modi

New Delhi: BJP on Tuesday targeted Rahul Gandhi for accusing Narendra Modi of favouring few industrialists and raising questions over development model of Gujarat and said the "insulated" Congress vice-president has poor knowledge of ground realities as he lives in a "cocoon".

BJP said Rahul was trying to malign Modi's image through "baseless" and "false" data as the party came out with point-by-point response to the issues raised by the Congress leader.

Party spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi termed as baseless the contention of Rahul that Modi only favours a few industrialists and does not care for people of Gujarat.

"It shows poor knowledge of an insulated leader who does not know the ground realities," she said, while claiming that Gujarat government has done tremendously well in social welfare.

"Rahul Gandhi has little knowledge about India and its states...He lives a cocoon life and never tried to put his basics right...Rahul is only plotting stories to malign the image of Narendra Modi by giving false data," she said.

Lekhi contended that Rahul was wrong on facts when he accused Modi of giving land to industrialist Gautam Adani at "throwaway" prices as also about non-existence of Lokayukta and RTI Commissioner in Gujarat and unemployment of 27000 crore in the state.

"These errors are shameful but also alarming, because these are the leaders in Congress who are claimants for power at the centre," she said.

Countering Rahul's allegation that Adani was promoted by Modi in giving land at throwaway prices, the BJP spokesperson alleged that the Congress government had doled out land almost free to GMR for construction of the Delhi airport.

"He should know that Gujarat government gave land at nominal price but Congress gave land to GMR to build the Indira Gandhi airport only for Rs 100. The actual price of land is Rs 1,63,557 crore. This gross violation of norms and pratices has never been mentioned by the Congress and this is by CAG report," Lekhi said.

Hitting out at Rahul for saying that there was no Lokayukta and RTI Commissioners in Gujarat, the BJP leader said, "When he alleged that Lokayukta is not functional in Gujarat and there is no Lokayukta, he forgot that the name of Lokayukta in Gujarat is Justice Buch."

She said he has given his reports to the government and in his first report tabled in the Gujarat Assembly, he has indicted former Chief Minister Amarsinh Choudhary, who belongs to the Congress in a forest scam.

On Rahul's claims that Haryana model of development is better than the Gujarat model, she said, "I can only say that he should know that various indicators and data collected by central government, Planning Commission etc show that Gujarat has achieved far more in the last decade than Congress-ruled states where the centre has failed miserably."

Lekhi alleged that "Rahul Gandhi is desperate to keep away his fear and is churning out hypothetical data which is really funny."

She claimed that Rahul has "said that 27000 crore posts are lying vacant in Gujarat". Questioning this, she said the world population is 600 crore and how can it be that four times the world population is unemployed in Gujarat.

Citing NSSO data, Lekhi also claimed that Gujarat has the lowest unemployment rate among all the states in the country while Congress ruled states like Kerala, Delhi and Haryana have the much higher unemployment rate.