The Rajasthan Congress on Thursday sharpened its attack against the central and state leadership of the ruling BJP under its month-long campaign that began on Wednesday to expose the ruling dispensation’s stand on contentious issues before the masses.

State president of the Congress party Govind Singh Dotasra and Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Rajasthan Assembly Tika Ram Julie released a short video film on the “failures of the Bhajan Lal Sharma-led government in the state”, daring rivals to a public debate on development issues with LoP Julie.

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All this while, the grand old party’s student wing National Students Union of India (NSUI) held a demonstration and burnt the effigy of Union Home Minister Amit Shah in protest against his utterances against Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar.

Addressing a press conference after releasing the film, Dotasra said, “Chief Minister Sharma has been repeatedly making claims about fulfilling most of the promises and achieving targets in the first year of his term in office. However, the ground reality is just the opposite as the Chief Minister and his government have not even made a de facto beginning.”

“The fact is that the first year of Sharma’s regime delivered no good. The CM and his team wasted their time and energy in (wrongly) condemning and cursing our party. Either they remained busy closing our schemes and initiatives or tried to take credit for the good work done in the previous regime,” he said.

“To emphasise my point, I call for a public debate between the Chief Minister and Leader of the Opposition Tikaram Julie on the ‘achievements’ of the first year of the incumbent regime vs a year of total failures,” Dotasra asserted. LoP Julie was also present at the press conference.

Countering the claims made by the ruling dispensation over the PKC-ERCP canal project at a grand event here on Monday, which was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Dotasra said, “The claims are hollow and mere lip service. At the function, the PM inaugurated the works completed by our party government.”

He further said, “Modiji neither announced the grant of fiscal allocation from the Centre nor the status of the national project for the mega canal project. In contrast, during the previous Congress regime, the Gehlot-led government had allocated nearly Rs 9,000 crore for this ambitious project, which will benefit 21 districts of the state.”

The PM also misled when he said that waters from the Narmada were reaching Jhunjhunu, Churu, and Hanumangarh, which is not correct. Waters from the Narmada cannot be taken to Churu, Jhunjhunu, and Hanumangarh.

The opposition party’s student wing also staged a demonstration at the gate of Rajasthan University here to protest Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s remarks against Bharat Ratna Dr Ambedkar.

The protesting youths raised slogans and burnt Shah’s effigy. Around 10 students, including NSUI state president Vinod Jhakar and former president Abhishek Choudhary, were taken into custody by the police.