Modi accuses Cong of dividing society, says party smacks of corruption, communalism

Bharuch/Surendranagar/New Delhi: Resuming his campaign trail in Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday accused the Congress of seeking to divide the people on caste and religious lines. Apparently referring to the ongoing religion-related overtones in the campaign, Mr Modi asserted that his gods were the 125 crore people of India and that he was serving them.

With the first phase of polling for 89 Assembly seats less than a week away, Mr Modi also referred to the coming election in the Congress for its next president to hit at the Opposition party’s absence of internal democracy, and took a veiled dig at late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi over the Emergency.

The PM addressed rallies at Bharuch, Surendranagar and Rajkot and later attended the inaguration ceremony of the Shri Jogiswami SGVP Hospital in Ahmedabad. He will address four more rallies on Monday at Dharampur in Valsad, Bhavnagar, Junagadh and Jamnagar in Saurashtra.

Continuing his tirade against the Congress, Mr Modi said: “If one doesn’t have democracy in his home (party), how can the person practise it in the country?” and said that the outcome of the election for the top post in the Congress was a foregone conclusion. He lashed out at the Congress over its criticism of the government’s ambitious bullet train project, saying if the Opposition party had a problem with it, it could roam around on bullock carts.

“The people of Gujarat know what the Congress is up to. It changes colour time and again, creates a wall between brothers, it wants to make urban areas fight with rural areas of the country, the illiterate fight with literates and the poor fight with the rich,” he said.

Mr Modi said the party made “one caste fight with the other, one religion fight with another”.

“They keep you busy in fighting with each other. You may die but the Congress will eat malai (cream),” he said, launching a broadside against the Opposition party apparently for having an alliance with caste leaders like Hardik Patel, Jignesh Mevani and Alpesh Thakor ahead of the Gujarat elections. He then said “all these diseases were cured” in Gujarat when BJP came to power.

Sharpening his attack on Congress leaders, including former PM Manmohan Singh and former finance minister P. Chidambaram, Mr Modi said at a rally in Bharuch district that by opposing the bullet train, the Congress stooped to a such a level that it was opposing the country’s development. Recently, Dr Singh and Mr Chidambaram, during their visits to Gujarat, had said the bullet train project was among the NDA government’s “misplaced priorities”.

“Dr Manmohan Singhji, your government had made an announcement before the 2012 (Gujarat Assembly) elections from Delhi about the bullet train, but your talks with Japan did not go down well as the loan Japan was offering we could not afford,” he said, and added that his government had negotiated the loan at a very low interest rate and the work on the bullet train had started.

Later, at a rally in Surendranagar district, Mr Modi hit out at the Congress over the coming election of its president. “An election is going on in the Congress Party for its president. What the result will be everybody knows,” he said. To this, the crowd replied that Rahul Gandhi will become the Congress president.

Mr Modi said a youth called Shehzad (Poonawala), who is a (Congress) party worker, had raised questions over the process of the election and alleged it was being rigged. “They keep on muttering words like tolerance, tolerance, tolerance... But the party has brought out a diktat to silence this youth. The party has gagged him from all WhatsApp groups. He has been collectively boycotted by that party,” Mr Modi claimed.

“We have a Gujarati saying which means that if there is water in a well, then only it can come in a bucket. If you do not have democracy in your home (party), how can you practise it in the country?” he said. He alleged that this was the practice with the Congress Party.

“Sardar Patel got more votes than Jawharlal Nehru when the Congress Party had (then) met to decide who will be the Prime Minster of the country. But that election was rigged and Nehru won,” he alleged and claimed that the same thing had happened with Morarji Desai.

“They have a history of rigging elections,” the PM said.

Earlier, in Bharuch, Mr Modi said his government had recently taken steps to delist bamboo from the tree category and classified it as a grass so that tribal people could grow it and sell it in forest areas. Targeting Mr Rahul Gandhi, the PM said the Congress government did not do it for the last 70 years.

“Those who don’t know what is to be done with potato ... how will they know what to do with bamboo?” he asked.

Hitting back at the PM for mocking its presidential polls, the Congress asked him when he would answer questions posed by the leaders of his own party. Congress communications chief Randeep Surjewala raked up the names of the BJP’s former top leaders like Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sanjay Joshi, Keshubhai Patel and Anandiben Patel, and that they were the “victims” of Mr Modi and BJP president Amit Shah’s “internal democracy”.

“Dear PM, your love for ‘Shahzad’, ‘Shah-Zada’ and ‘Shaurya’ is now well known, but ‘Nation wants to know’ when will you reply to the questions raised by senior BJP leaders, ‘Shourie (Arun), Sinha (Yashwant) and Sinha (Shatrughan)”,” he tweeted.

Mr Surjewala also referred to senior BJP leaders like Mr Advani and Mr Joshi in another tweet. “Modiji, do tell Gujarat and the country about the victims of yours and Amit Shah’s ‘internal democracy’ in the BJP — Lal Krishna Advani, Keshubhai Patel, Hiren Pandya, Kashiram Rana, Anandiben Patel, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sanjay Joshi, who were compulsorily lost in the pages of history,” he said.