"Khata-Khat paise andar...": Rahul Gandhi in Varanasi

Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) [India], May 28 : Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday asserted that after June 5, the money will be transferred to the bank accounts of poor women if the INDIA bloc wins the Lok Sabha elections.
"We are going to deposit lakhs of crores of rupees in the bank accounts of the poor in India. Under the Mahalakshmi scheme, a list will be prepared of the poor people in the country... From every poor family, a woman's name will be selected... On 5th July, Rs 8,500 will be credited to the bank accounts of crores of poor women in the country... This will continue from July to August to September, October, November, December and so on 'khata-khat, khata-khat, khata-khat andar'," Rahul said addressing a rally in Varanasi.
He said that PM Modi was sent by his "parmatma (his God)" to help industrialists, Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani and not the poor.
"Everyone else is biological but Narendra Modi ji is not biological. He has been sent by his 'parmatma' to help Ambani and Adani but 'parmatma' has not sent him to help the farmers, labourers and poor people. If 'parmatma' had sent him then they (parmatma) would have asked him to help the poor and the farmers. Yeh kaise 'parmatma' hain? Yeh Narendra Modi ji wale 'parmatma hain (What kind of God is this? This is PM Modi's God)," Rahul Gandhi said.
The Wayanad MP also accused the media of being "friends with billionaires and Modi ji".
"'Press Ke Mitro' kehna padhta hai par hai nhi yeh mitra (friends). They are friends of Adani ji, Modiji and Ambaniji. But in media only Narendra Modi's face and Ambani's wedding were shown," the Congress leader alleged.
The Congress leader said that the INDIA bloc will protect the Constitution.
"Narendra Modi and his leaders have openly attacked Babasaheb's Constitution. BJP people say that if they win, they will destroy the Constitution. I want to tell BJP- this is the biggest mistake of your life. No power in the world can destroy our Constitution. We will continue to protect it," he said.
The Congress leader promised at the rally that he would tear apart the Agnipath scheme and throw it in a dustbin.
"He (PM Modi) says that there will be two kinds of soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the country. One, a normal jawan or officer whose family will get a pension, status, and will get all other facilities. The other, a poor family's son who is named Agniveer; this Agniveer will neither get the status of 'shaheed' nor will he get any pension or any other facility. The INDIA bloc, if voted to power, will throw the Agnipath scheme into the dustbin. This is the scheme of PM Modi," he said.
Rahul Gandhi also said that if the INDIA bloc forms the government after June 4, it would fill up three million job vacancies.
Rahul Gandhi was addressing an election rally in Uttar Pradesh with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav.
Varanasi is set for a fierce battle between PM Modi and Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Ajay Rai in the last phase of the Lok Sabha elections on June 1.
Varanasi is a closely watched constituency in the last phase of the Lok Sabha election, is one of the 80 Lok Sabha constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, with five assembly segments Rohaniya, Varanasi North, Varanasi South, Varanasi Cantt, and Sevapuri.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded its Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while Ajay Rai from the Congress and Athar Jamal Lari from the Bahujan Samaj Party have filed their nominations against him.
PM Modi, the sitting MP and BJP's candidate is seeking a third consecutive term from the constituency and hoping to win with a record margin.
Ajay Rai is the president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee and is facing a huge challenge against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is a two-time MP from Varanasi.
The UP Congress chief, Rai, was also fielded by the Congress against the PM in Varanasi in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, but he finished third both times.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, PM Modi won the seat with over 6,74,664 votes and commanded a vote share of 63.6 per cent.
In 2014, PM Modi won the Varanasi seat for the first time on a BJP ticket, receiving 56.37 per cent of the total votes, while Arvind Kejriwal from the AAP came in second with 20.30 per cent and Ajay Rai from the Congress party came in third with 7.34 per cent of the votes. PM Modi won the elections with a margin exceeding 3 lakh votes.
As per the seat agreement between the Samajwadi Party and Congress in Uttar Pradesh, Congress is contesting on 17 seats and the Samajwadi Party has the remaining 63 seats in the electorally crucial state.
In the 2019 general elections, the BJP emerged triumphant, securing 62 out of 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, supplemented by two seats clinched by its ally Apna Dal (S). Mayawati's BSP managed to secure 10 seats, while Akhilesh Yadav's SP garnered five. Conversely, the Congress party secured only one seat.
The voting in Varanasi will be held in the seventh phase of the Lok Sabha elections on June 1. The counting of the votes will take place on June 4.