BJP government handed over Masood Azhar to Pak: Rahul Gandhi

"Masood Azhar of Jaish-e-Mohammad was responsible for the Pulwama terror attack. The truth is, it was the BJP govt that handed over Masood Azhar to Pakistan and current NSA Ajit Doval was involved in it," Gandhi said amid BJP's allegations that the Congress is speaking in the language of Pakistan.

Azhar's JeM had carried out the Pulwama attack, which had left at least 40 Indian paramilitary personnel martyred.

A day after the dates for the General Election were announced by the Election Commission, Gandhi claimed it will be the Congress which will form the government after the declaration of poll results on May 23, four days after the last leg of the Lok Sabha elections.

"We will be forming the government this year," the Congress chief said while addressing the booth workers meeting in Delhi.

Nearly five years after Congress shown its worst performance since Independence, Gandhi came out with a promise to ensure minimum income for all poor people.

In 2014, it was the BJP which swept the polls by securing 282 Lok Sabha seats while Congress, which was then led by Gandhi's mother and senior party leader Sonia, got 40 odd seats.

With few weeks to go for the beginning of the Lok Sabha polls, Gandhi criticised the Narendra Modi government's demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST) moves.

"Today's Prime Minister never utters truth. Noteban and GST ruined small scale business in Delhi," Gandhi tried to address the people of the Union Territory which will see a triangular fight between BJP, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) despite the Opposition's quest to form a grand alliance.

He added, "Immediately after Demonetisation, Dr. Manmohan Singh had estimated 2% GDP loss as a consequence and after one year we found that to be true." 

Delhi has seven Lok Sabha seats which were all swept by the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Not allowing the Rafale issue to take a backseat, Gandhi said the Congress' repeated questions on an alleged scam over the buying of 36 fighter jets from France left BJP unanswerable.

"The Prime Minister spoke in the parliament for 1.5 hours. But when Congress questioned, he couldn't meet our eyes. This is the power of Congress," the parliamentarian from Uttar Pradesh's Amethi constituency said.

Gandhi and Congress have been alleging for quite some time now that the BJP government bypassed the Rafale deal to benefit businessman Anil Ambani. Recently The Hindu reports claiming PMO (Prime Minister's Office)'s intervention in the process of deal-making prompted the country's main opposition party to slam the Modi government.

"5 years ago, Chowkidar said he wanted to fight corruption. He said he wanted to make it a 'Congress-mukt Bharat'. Today, the slogan of 'Acche Din Aayenge' has changed to 'Chowkidar chor hai'," the Congress supremo said.

Image Credit: Congress Twitter