Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday alleged the Congress was concerned only with the Nehru-Gandhis while he was working tirelessly to transform the lives of the people, who were suffering because of decades of “one-family rule”.
Modi addressed three rallies in poll-bound Rajasthan, appearing to seek votes in his own name rather than that of the Vasundhara Raje government.
Of the three BJP-ruled states headed for the polls, the party is believed to be facing the toughest battle in Rajasthan. Modi appeared to be striving to counter the pervading anger against the state government by appealing to people to strengthen his hands by voting for the BJP.
“Do you know the power of the one vote each of you have?” he asked the crowd in Kota. “That single vote from you formed the BJP government at the Centre and gave Modi the strength to fight the crooks looting your welfare money.”
Modi said crores were being siphoned off in the name of fake beneficiaries and that, after becoming Prime Minister, he had prevented the “theft” of public funds amounting to Rs 90,000 crore.
Now that he had robbed the corrupt of their income, he said, they had turned jobless and were targeting him with all kinds of false charges. “I need your support to fight the crooks,” he said.
Modi claimed he was toiling to pull the country out of the misery inflicted during the decades of Congress misrule.
“Have you ever heard that I have taken a holiday? Have you ever heard that I have gone somewhere for leisure or have been missing for a week? I give an account of each and every decision I take and the work I do,” he told a rally in Bhilwara.
In the context of the Ujjwala scheme to provide cooking gas connections to the poor, Modi said that unlike the Congress’s leader he was nor born rich and could therefore understand the sufferings of the poor.
“Their leader was born with a silver spoon in his mouth; Modi was not. I have seen the troubles my poor mother faced while cooking with firewood,” he said.
Rahul Gandhi cannot solve the farmers’ problems because he has no idea about agriculture, the Prime Minister argued, in an oblique admission that rural distress had emerged as a key election issue.
“The Congress talks about farmers. How can a ‘namdar’ (high-born) talk about farmer welfare when he doesn’t know whether chickpeas grow on trees or (soft-stemmed) plants,” he said.
Modi also mentioned the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, whose tenth anniversary fell on Monday. He castigated the Congress for questioning his government over the cross-border “surgical strikes” on terror hideouts.
“When the army carried out the surgical strike going into enemy territory, the whole country felt proud but the Congress raised questions and demanded video proof,” he said. “Do you expect the commandos carry cameras to provide proof?”
Modi accused the Congress of playing with India’s security, saying bomb blasts used the rock the country regularly during UPA rule.
He claimed his government was dealing firmly with both the terrorists and the Maoists.
“We have replied to the terrorists and the Naxals in their own language,” he said, attacking the Congress for calling Maoists “revolutionaries”.
