As the votes were being cast in Karnataka on Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed rallies and held a road show in Rajasthan, continuing to be in campaign mode in a state where polls are at least six months away.
Modi spoke at three events in Rajasthan, including one political rally, where he slammed the Congress.
The first event at Nathdwara was an official one to launch and lay the foundation stones of development projects but turned political when Modi addressed the crowd. Modi shared the dias with Rajasthan chief minister and senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot and also held a brief road show.
As Gehlot rose to speak, he was obstructed by the crowd with “Modi, Modi” chants. Modi and state BJP chief C.P. Joshi had to gesture to the crowd to calm down and allow Gehlot to speak.
Gehlot stressed the importance of the Opposition, saying it should be respected. “Without Opposition, what is the ruling side?” he asked.
The chief minister reminded Modi that after a mob lynching incident, the latter had called the perpetrators “anti-social elements” and stressed that this should bethe approach as violence and tension hindered development.
As Modi rose to speak, he referred to Gehlot as a “friend” and went on to slam “some people filled with so much negativity” that they can’t tolerate any good things happening in the country. He accused the previous governments of ignoring basic development.
The second event was a political rally organised by the BJP at Mount Abu Road. Here Modi shared the dias with Vasundhara Raje Scindia, the BJP’s senior leader and former chief minister of Rajasthan.
Gehlot had recently credited Vasundhara with saving his government when a sectionof the Congress MLAs rebelled against him under the leadership of his party colleague Sachin Pilot three years back.
Modi didn’t make any reference to Vasundhara in his speech and focused on slamming the Congress. He referred to the factional fight in the Rajasthan Congress and wondered how such a government could deliver development.
“The chief minister (Gehlot) doesn’t trust his MLAs and the MLAs don’t trustthe chief minister. When everyone in the government is competing to insult each other, who will care about development?” Modi said.
Modi claimed that his government had done more work for “garib kalyan” (welfare of the poor) in the last nineyears than all the Congress governments put together. He said the Congress’s “garibi hatao” (eradicate poverty) slogan 50 years ago was the greatest fraud committed in the country.
The third and last event of the day was a non-political one organised by the Brahma Kumaris in Mount Abu where Modi spoke.
Snippets of the three events were telecast live by news channels across the country, including Karnataka where voting was in progress.
Modi’s events in Rajasthan coincided with polling in Karnataka when they should have ideally been scheduled on May 9, the birth anniversary of Maharana Pratap, a warrior from Rajasthan’s Mewar who fought against the Mughals and is a big Hindutva symbol for the BJP.
The events were organised in the Mewar region and in his speech Modi paid his respects to Maharana Pratap.
On Tuesday, a day after the Karnataka campaign came to a close, Modi had tweeted a poster and a video message, appealing to Karnataka’selectorate to use their ballotto help make the state “Number 1”.