Stop fooling the nation, Rahul tells Modi

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi Wednesday told BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi to "stop fooling the country" by claiming that he had solutions to all the problems.

"Modiji, desh ko ullu banana bandh karo" (Modiji, stop fooling the country), Gandhi said at an election meeting in Bihar's Kishanganj parliamentary constituency.

The Congress candidate and outgoing MP from Kishanganj is Maulana Asrarul Haque.

Gandhi said Bihar would need a Bihar model of development for its success, not a Gujarat model.

He targeted Modi, saying the BJP's Gujarat model was one-man centric - because one person wanted to become prime minister.

"His (Modi's) goal is to become PM, nothing else," Gandhi said.

"The development of Gujarat or the country cannot be a handiwork of one man. It is the result of people, particularly farmers, workers, labourers..."

Gandhi reiterated that Modi's economic model was like a "toffee or balloon" model, aimed at looting public money to benefit corporate houses.

He charged Modi with giving away 45,000 acres of land belonging to poor farmers to one corporate house at Re.1 per sq metre "which is equivalent to the price of a toffee".

The Congress said Modi was talking about development in Gujarat but silent over the fact that some 40 lakh people of that state were below the poverty line and earned less than Rs.11 a day.