Addressing a slew of election rallies in support of party candidates, Mr Gandhi iterated, ''The spectre of poverty and terrorism is stalking the country and we need to kill poverty to fight terrorism.
We will continue to work for the cause of the downtrodden and the underprivileged even if not voted to power.'' ''We will be gratified if people vote us to power but even if they don't, we will continue pressing the party at the Centre to promote the cause of the poor,'' he stated.
Describing the Congress as a people-friendly party, he said, ''We had written off an agricultural loan amounting to Rs 170 crore for the welfare of the peasants,'' and highlighted the initiatives taken up by the Congress-led UPA government in the past five years like the mid-day meal and NREGA schemes to better the lots of the underprivileged, including the adivasis.
Lambasting the State Government in West Bengal for failing to utilise the Central fund, Mr Gandhi flayed the CPI(M)-led Left Front for making the state ''backward'' and resisting the Nuclear deal with the USA.
The Left Front government had miserably failed to implement the flagship programmes, launched by the UPA government at the Centre for the poor, Mr Gandhi said.
He was canvassing for party nominees Mausam Noor (Malda South), Abu Hassan Khan Chowdhury (Malda North), Shantiram Mahato (Purulia), Subroto Mukherjee (Bankura) and Sukhbilas Barma (Jalpaiguri).
