Pitching the election in the prestigious Varanasi seat as a battle between the “arabpati (billionaire) and garib (poor)“, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi represents only the rich and his ten-year rule has benefited Ambani and Adani.

At a public rally in Varanasi, held jointly with INDIA bloc partner Samajwadi Party, ahead of polling on June 1, Gandhi said: “I’m giving you a guarantee that Modi is not going to become PM again. It’s merely a contest between Narendra Modi and Ajay Rai (Congress candidate from Varanasi) who will win with a huge margin.”

He said this battle of Kashi (Varanasi) is between Dalits, Scheduled Tribes, farmers, panwallahs and saree weavers on one side and the rich like Ambanis and Adanis on the other with the BJP.

Gandhi claimed that Modi waived off Rs 16 lakh crore as non-performing assets to help the rich while the poor continue to pay. “Under Modi, the rich have become richer and poor poorer,” he said.

Quoting the PM from one of his interviews, Gandhi said: “When asked whether his government was for Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, Modi took a pause and replied, ‘what do you want, do you want to make everyone poor’.”

Gandhi said while he himself does not want the rich to become poor, he also believes that both the rich and the poor should get the same benefits.

Reaching out to the Benarasi saree weavers and panwallahs, Gandhi said there should less taxes for them. He said when INDIA government comes to power, GST will be rationalised to have one slab.

He then cited the Congress manifesto to appeal to the voters to vote for the Congress candidate in Varanasi. “Modi gave money to rich, they took the nation’s wealth outside the country. But, when money will be transferred to the accounts of youth, women and farmers, it will help you buy things like mobiles that in turn will run industries to make in India and accelerate the economy,” he said.

Gandhi also reiterated the INDIA bloc stand to terminate the Agniveer schemes of recruitment in the tri-services as he said it was an “insult” especially to youth and there will be only one category.

Speaking ahead of Gandhi, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said that some of the development schemes in Varanasi for which Modi claimed credit were actually his initiatives and conceptualised when there was an SP government in Uttar Pradesh. The SP leader said that the Amul dairy plant inaugurated by Modi in Varanasi was the SP government’s brainchild and they wanted to have one each in Kanpur and Lucknow too.

Taking a dig at Modi, Yadav asked the crowd whether Varanasi has been turned into Kyoto as the PM had promised. He said during his visit to Japan, he took a bullet train to travel from Tokyo to Kyoto. “Has the bullet train project promised by Modi been delivered till now,” Yadav asked the public.