Prime Minister Narendra Modi feels that the Congress has decided not to return to power for the next 100 years.

Yet, Modi devoted almost the entire 90-plus minutes of his speech in the Lok Sabha on Monday to attacking — hold your breath — the said Congress.

Not a second of those 90-odd minutes was spent on making any direct mention of China.

So obsessed was Modi with the Congress that at one point he charged the Opposition party with handing out free tickets to migrant labourers to spread Covid-19 in northern India. Modi’s friend Donald Trump had blamed China for Covid-19 but the Prime Minister has found a domestic hand instead of the usual “foreign hand”.

The august House in effect became an extension of the campaign trail that Modi could not physically cover in Uttar Pradesh because of the pandemic. The Prime Minister converted his reply to the discussion of the motion of thanks to the President’s address into an attack on the Opposition party he appears unable to ignore in spite of its diminished status.

Modi called the Congress the leader of the “tukde tukde gang” and accused the party of toeing the divide-and-rule policy of the British.

The Prime Minister was undoubtedly incensed by Rahul Gandhi’s speech last week through which the Congress MP dissected the state of the Union and reminded the ruling party that India is a Union of States — something the first sub-clause of the Constitution declares.

If Rahul quoted from the Constitution, Modi chose the lexicon of the Right-wing ecosystem. Borrowing a phrase popularised by pro-BJP television propagandists and trolls, the Prime Minister told the Lok Sabha: “Congress aaj tukde tukde gang ki leader ban gayi hai.”

He indirectly accused Rahul of trying to inflame Tamil sentiments. “Tamil sentiments ko aag lagane ki koshish ki gayi,” Modi said, without directly referring to Rahul’s accusation that the current government was bulldozing the federal structure and the idea of India.

Modi did quote from a book – The Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru. The Prime Minister sought to take on Rahul, without naming him, for stressing in his speech that India was not a nation and quoted Nehru to say that the first Prime Minister too had endorsed that despite its diversity, India was one nation.

Modi cited a poem by Subramania Bharathi, the renowned Tamil poet and freedom fighter, in praise of India’s all-encompassing national identity.

“Rashtra ek jiwit aatma hai (The nation is a living soul),” Modi said and stressed that this spirit imbued the Constitution, too, glossing over the fact that Rahul was not disputing nationhood but targeting the propensity of the BJP to cry “nation” every time federal questions arose.

Modi regularly castigates the Congress inside and outside Parliament but his speech on Monday suggested his hatred of the party had not subsided even after seven years in power. It was also an indirect acknowledgement that he still counted the Congress as his biggest adversary.

Trying to counter the complaint of the rise in the prices of essential commodities, which is threatening to become a key factor against the BJP in the upcoming Assembly polls, Modi went as far back as the Nehruvian era to accuse the Congress of being insensitive towards the suffering of the people.

He quoted Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech from the Red Fort and claimed the first Prime Minister had said that a price rise was inevitable if there was a war in Korea or something went wrong in the US.

“Pandit Nehru, India’s first PM, raised his hands and said people have to suffer price rise,” Modi said, dripping contempt.

“Had you (the Congress) been in power now, you would have blamed inflation on Covid and washed your hands of the matter. But we are not doing so and we are sincerely trying to lessen the people’s suffering.”

Modi said there had been double-digit inflation during the last five years of the UPA government while his government had managed to restrict inflation to a single digit.

Repeated protests rose from the Congress benches asking Modi about his promise to create 2 crore jobs annually, but the Prime Minister sought to skirt the issue.

Modi went to the extent of holding the Congress responsible for the nationwide spread of Covid, terming it a “paap (sin)” against humanity and the country.

“The Congress crossed the limits. During the first wave when we had the lockdown... the Congress gave free tickets to labourers at Mumbai railway station to go and spread coronavirus,” Modi said, adding that the infection spread in states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Punjab because of this.

He said the Congress was stuck in the “2014 mindset” and was unable to marshal the will to bounce back to power.

“The way you (the Congress) pick issues and the kind of statements you make, I feel that you have decided not to come to power for the next 100 years,” Modi said.

“Now that you have decided not to come to power for the next 100 years, I too have made my preparations.”

The only time the Prime Minister strayed from attacking the Congress was when he patted himself in the back for ushering in development, uplifting the poor and driving India towards self-reliance.

With Rahul often targeting the Modi government for its alleged proximity to the Adani and Ambani groups, the Prime Minister accused the Opposition of “scaring” industrialists and entrepreneurs.

He accused the Congress of using economists to spread an atmosphere of doom about the country and claimed the world had now recognised the economic roadmap India had adopted after the Covid outbreak.

Modi painted a rosy picture of the economy, saying India had emerged as the world’s fastest-growing economy and called on the Opposition to join hands for the country’s progress and not obstruct it.

Last week, Rahul had underscored the threat from a coming together of China and Pakistan. Modi, who has been fighting shy of mentioning China by name since the Galwan bloodshed, made no direct reference to the issue on Monday.