Earlier on Monday, in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi offered prayers at Ujjain's Mahakaleshwar temple and also signed it off a road-show in Indore amid chants of "Har Har Mahadev". While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) retorted, saying Gandhi was trying to build his image as that of a "Shiv bhakt" with his temple visits, the Congress chief hit out at the Narendra Modi government at the Centre and the Shivraj Singh Chouhan regime in Madhya Pradesh, alleging failures on several fronts, including jobs and corruption.
The Congress had last year said Gandhi was an ardent "Shiv bhakt". In August, he had undertaken the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra to seek the blessings of Lord Shiva. Clad in white kurta-pyjama, Gandhi waved at the people from an open-top vehicle and shook hands with some of them during the three-km journey from the Bada Ganpati intersection in the state's commercial capital to the historic Rajwada.
Indore is considered a bastion of the ruling BJP. In the 2013 state Assembly polls, the saffron party had won all the five seats here. Madhya Pradesh, where the Congress is in the opposition since 2003, will go to the polls on November 28 and the results will be announced on December 11. During his two-day tour, Gandhi will visit the politically crucial Malwa-Nimar region, which accounts for 66 of the 230 Assembly seats in the state. In the 2013 polls, the BJP had won 56 seats in the region and the Congress had managed to bag just nine, while one seat had gone to an Independent candidate.