Rahul alleges BJP making false promises to backward classes

In a bid to woo voters ahead of the 2014 general elections, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of making false promises to backward classes through their 'India Shining' campaign, and said that it failed to have an impact on the voters in the previous Lok Sabha elections.

Speaking here at the 'National Conference on Dalit Adhikar Diwas', organised by All India Valmiki Federation, Gandhi said: "They (BJP) talk of 'India Shinning', as if India is shinning, literally. Then they fail to understand that even after India is shinning then why did they loose elections? How did this happen? This happened in 2004, 2009, and again this will happen in 2014," said Gandhi.

Earlier in the day, Gandhi also addressed a gathering while inaugurating an awareness camp on empowerment of backward classes.

Gandhi added that the BJP was solely interested in garnering more votes from the Dalit community and were using a fabrication of truth to do so as they were actually disconnected from the ground realities of poverty in India.

"Our opposition doesn't understand the problems of poor people of the country. They may pretend to talk but then they are not actually talking to you, they don't go to your houses, and most importantly they don't understand your problems," Gandhi said.

On October 4, while announcing the polling dates for five states - Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Mizoram-Chief Election Commissioner V.S. Sampath declared the Election Commission, for the first time, would be deploying Central Awareness Observers to motivate voters to exercise their franchise in a bid to increase the voter turnout.

Taking note of the Supreme Court's recent ruling, giving voters the right to reject candidates in the electoral fray, Sampath said the Election Commission is taking adequate measures to educate both voters and officials deployed for election duty for the same.

The counting of votes for all five states would take place on December 8, 2013.