This Article is From Dec 02, 2013

'Media covering only Narendra Modi's rallies, ignoring Congress Chief Ministers'

'Media covering only Narendra Modi's rallies, ignoring Congress Chief Ministers'

BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi during an election campaign rally at MA Stadium in Jammu.

New Delhi: Congress rubbished BJP's claim that senior leaders of the ruling party at the Centre were cancelling rallies in the national capital because, unlike Narendra Modi's rallies, these were not attracting crowds.

AICC General Secretary Shakeel Ahmed yesterday said that rallies of "only one Chief Minister, Narendra Modi of BJP," were being covered by media, while five Chief Ministers of Congress were addressing rallies in New Delhi.

"Five Chief Ministers are campaigning for Congress - Sheila Dikshit of Delhi, Virbhadra Singh of Himachal Pradesh, Vijay Bahuguna of Uttarakhand, Oommen Chandy of Kerala and Bhupinder Singh Hooda of Haryana.

"But the attitude of media is somewhat surprising that they are giving publicity to the public meetings of Modi.

"This, when all these five Congress-ruled states are more developed than Gujarat," Mr Ahmed said.

When it was pointed out that no top leader of the party like Sonia Gandhi, Rahul and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are addressing rallies for Congress in the last leg of campaign for Delhi, he said the Congress President Sonia Gandhi has already addressed one rally and the Congress Vice President Rahul has addressed two.

He said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's rally on November 30 had to be cancelled because of the visit by Japanese emperor and empress.

"Congress has not stopped its campaigning," he said.

Dozens of leaders including Union Ministers Salman Khurshid, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Harish Rawat, K Rahman Khan, Kumari Selja, V Narayansamy, RPN Singh and Jitin Prasada, Punjab PCC chief Pratap Singh Bajwa, Assam PCC chief Bhuvneshwar Kalita and MPs Raj Babbar, Md Azaharuddin, Mukul Wasnik, Satpal Maharaj and others are campaigning," he said.

He said BJP leaders have on the other hand left everything to the Chief Minister of one state, Narendra Modi, and its local leadership has "totally surrendered realising they cannot defeat Sheila Dikshit on their own."

On the contrary, Mr Ahmed said, ministers of Delhi government are out to address people and seek their vote.

After Dr Singh's last minute cancellation of the November 30 rally, BJP had said Congress leaders have stopped addressing rallies seeing the crowd at Modi's rallies in Delhi.

BJP had earlier taunted Congress over reports of people leaving the rally ground ahead of Rahul Gandhi's address.

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