Prime Minister Narendra Modi mocked Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi while stating here on Friday that Mr Gogoi had stopped smiling after the heavy polling in the first phase of the Assembly elections.
Taking a dig at the Congress leadership, Mr Modi said that after feeling the nerve of the electorate, the party has started calling central party leaders to campaign. “Even the Congress leadership cannot save the party from defeat in the polls, the second and final phase of which will be held on Monday,” said Mr Modi at an election rally at Raha, in central Assam’s Nagaon district.
Mr Modi arrived here on Thursday to campaign for the BJP. Polling for 61 constituencies will take place on Monday.
“I thank the people of Assam for the unprecedented high percentage of voting in the first phase,” said the PM. Confident the BJP-led alliance would win, Mr Modi said, “You must have noticed that the Assam chief minister has stopped smiling after the first phase. He is now inviting Congress leaders from Delhi to save him. But how can they (Congress leaders) save Gogoiji when they could not even save Delhi,” he asked, referring to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
In an obvious dig at Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Mr Modi said Congress leaders were more concerned about “their own sons and daughters”. He said he had come to Assam to seek the people’s support to bring about a change of government in the state.
Mr Modi cited various records of the development index and said he had not seen another state in India, apart from Assam, where he claimed the entire population lived below the poverty line. “There are states in India where there are 20 or 30 per cent BPL populations. But the Congress in Assam has turned the entire population of the state as poor as BPL,” he said. Appealing to the people of Assam to vote for the BJP and its allies, he said there should be a new government in the state in the new year which starts from Bihu. He asked the people to give a decisive mandate in the second phase also while fearing that no one is sure if Assam CM Tarun Gogoi will be able to survive the wave of the BJP in Assam.
A total of 65 constituencies in Assam saw a record 82.20 per cent polling in the first phase on April 4.
