Rahul Gandhi: Congress will launch 'surgical strike' on poverty

Jaipur, Mar 26 Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday guaranteed a "surgical strike" on neediness and said his party had been chipping away at how to kill it throughout the last half year.

Addressing a rally in Suratgarh a day after declaring his party would roll out a minimum income guarantee scheme for the poorest 20 percent households if voted to power, Gandhi said just the rich could dream under the Narendra Modi rule.

"We will destroy neediness in the nation. This is a 'dhamaka'. No nation has done this ever. There should not be a single poor person in the country," Gandhi said.

He said his party would work to reduce unemployment if it comes to power.

"If Modi gives money to the rich, the Congress will give money to poor people," Gandhi said.

Charging that Modi had helped those who had black money, the Congress president said those lifted from poverty by the UPA government had again been made poor in the last five years.

As per him, 14 crore people were lifted from poverty by the UPA government.

"It is a disgrace that there are as yet 25 crore poor people in the nation," Gandhi said.

"You will get the right price for your work and item," he told the social occasion.

The UPA government had propelled plots more than 10 years yet Modi finished them all, the Congress chief stated, including that the executive had neglected to understand the MGNREGA job scheme.

Taking a jibe at Modi, he said the prime minister was to be sure a "chowkidaar" but of industrialist Anil Ambani.