'BJP has finished Haryana': Rahul Gandhi vows caste census, employment generation

Karnal (Haryana): Hitting the poll campaign trail in election-bound Haryana, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused the BJP government of finishing the state by failing to generate employment that is forcing the youth to immigrate and vowed to conduct a caste census and redress grievances of the farmers.

Addressing a rally in Assandh in Karnal where Sirsa MP and former Union minister Kumari Selja, who had been missing from campaigning so far, shared the dais along with senior party leaders, including two-time Chief Minister Bhupinder Hooda, Gandhi asked: "Why are the youth of Haryana going to the US?"

Narrating an experience from his recent visit to America, he said: "When I visited Dallas in the US, I saw 15-20 people sleeping in one room. A youth told me that many of them took loans or sold their land to pay around Rs 30-50 lakh to come to the US."

"When I told them that they could use the same amount to start a business in Haryana, they said it was not possible to do so in the state. When I visited Karnal, I saw a child screaming at a computer asking his father to return from the US during a video call. The Haryana government has finished the state and its youth."

Expressing confidence that his party would sweep the elections as Haryana will fight unitedly, Gandhi said: "Our government will be for everyone."

The Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha said a caste census aims at providing nearly 90 per cent of the country’s population their "rightful due".

"If this much of the population does not get its due, the Constitution can not be preserved or protected," he said, adding that 90 per cent of the country’s population remains “marginalised with little to no representation in the corporate world.

Gandhi maintained that such a census would form a key policy framework for Congress.

Ahead of the rally, the BJP attacked the Congress leader for campaigning in Assandh from where Shamsher Singh Gogi is in the fray, alleging that Gogi has openly declared he will "fill his coffers" and those of people close to him, if the Congress formed the government in Haryana.

"Rahul Gandhi is starting his rally in Haryana for a Congress candidate who, just two days ago, openly declared that he will loot Haryana. Rahul Gandhi is coming to campaign for the candidate who has declared that if the Congress government comes to power, he will first fill his own coffers and then the coffers of his people,” the BJP said in a post on X.

Haryana will go to the polls on October 5 with the ballot count on October 8.