DHAKA: India’s ruling Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday termed the Gujarat model of governance as destructive, divisive in nature and prayed to God to save the country from this model.

‘Hey Bhagwan desh ko is model se bachao (God save the country from this model),’ Sonia Gandhi said reacting to BJP’s claims of trying to replicate what Gujarat chief minister and BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi had done in that state.

The Congress president said the BJP’s much touted Gujarat model is actually the ‘Modi model’ under which the common man is suffering in the state and prayed to God to save the country from it.

‘BJP’s chief campaigner is selling Narendra Modi model in the name of Gujarat. What is happening in Gujarat under this model? Sikhs living there since past 50 years were being forced to leave the state,’ Sonia said while addressing an election rally in Malwa belt of Punjab.

Taking a dig at Narendra Modi, while campaigning for Congress candidate Vijayinder Singla, Sonia Gandhi said BJP might be trying to sell the Gujarat model in India but people must know destructive and divisive this model of governance is.

‘Farmers are being displaced after snatching lands from them, villages are without potable water, children up to 5 years of age are malnourished, people earning up to Rs 11 a day are not kept below poverty line (BPL) category, big chunks of lands are being provided to favored ones for peanuts,’ Sonia said.

‘If this is BJP model of governance, country does not want this model of governance,’ said the Congress president, reports The Times of India.

BDST: 1934 HRS, APR 26, 2014