Tirunelveli (TN)/ Thiruvananthapuram: Prime Minister Narendra Modi. making a special appeal to first-time voters in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, pledged to create a drug-free nation in the next five years.
Seeking votes for NDA candidates contesting in the Lok Sabha seats of Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Kanyakumari, Tenkasi and Virudhunagar, and for the BJP candidate at the Vilavancode Assembly constituency that goes for a bypoll on April 19, Modi said on Monday it was his last meeting in Tamil Nadu for this election.
“The overwhelming support I was given during my election campaigns in Tamil Nadu gives me the hope that a new history is to be created on April 19 by the people of Tamil Nadu,” said the Prime Minister.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on seeing the people’s support enjoyed by the BJP in the state, the DMK and Congress in the I.N.D.I.A. bloc have lost sleep.
Reacting to the “Modi again” and the “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” slogans of the cadre at the rally, Modi said the meeting seemed not a poll campaign but a victory meeting of the BJP.
“The DMK and Congress, however, have been frightened by the support you gave to me,” said the PM, who also wanted Tamil Nadu’s people to give a shock to the INDIA bloc in the state by voting in favour of the BJP and NDA candidates on April 19.
Earlier on Monday, while campaigning in Kerala, Modi tore into the state’s ruling CPM, accusing the Marxists of “embezzling crores of rupees”.
In a fierce attack on the Left parties, particularly the CPM, he accused them of embezzling crores of rupees of poor and middle class families deposited in cooperative banks across the state. Addressing separate public meetings in Alathur in Palakkad district and Kattakada in Thiruvananthapuram district, Modi accused the CPM of devising new models of corruption to loot every single rupee of the people. “More than one lakh crore rupees of the poor and middle-class families are deposited in over 300 cooperative banks in the state. This money is under threat,” he said.
Modi said the kickbacks received by the CPM leaders in this corruption are also worth crores of rupees. A bribe of '25 crore was deposited in over 80 undisclosed accounts in Thrissur district alone. Over 100 properties have been bought in the name of the Thrissur district secretary.
The PM alleged that the accused in the Cochin Minerals and Rutiles Ltd (CMRL) corruption case have disclosed that they had paid bribes to the chief minister and his daughter. But the state government was using its entire might to stall the probe into the case.
Modi’s no-holds-barred attack on the CPM assumes significance in the backdrop of the Congress-led UDF accusing the Central government of going soft on cooperative bank corruption cases involving LDF leaders and the CMRL issue. The Congress has time and again accused the CPM of having an underhand deal with the BJP in many seats.
“I am seeking legal opinion on whether the crores of rupees of the corrupt people attached by the agencies can be given back to the affected people. My government has already returned Rs 17,000 crores to scam-affected people across the country,” Modi said.
The Prime Minister took a dig at the governments led by the Left parties in the past. Whether it was earlier governments in West Bengal, Tripura and now Kerala, the Left parties have only one character: “Nothing is left wherever they rule and nothing happens right either when they are in power.”
He added: “First, they ruled and ruined West Bengal and Tripura, and now they are doing the same in Kerala.”
Also, without naming Rahul Gandhi, the PM said that a top Congress leader had left his family seat in Uttar Pradesh because of a lack of confidence. “Now he has found refuge in Kerala. He is tying up with organisations that are banned for anti-national activities,” the PM said, indirectly referring to the SDPI's (political arm of banned PFI) recent offer to support the Congress.
Modi said both the UDF and LDF fight here and embrace each other outside Kerala. “They are together in neighbouring Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu where I will be addressing a public meeting later in the day,” he said. He added that both parties have been rejected by the people of the country.
The prime minister solicited votes for BJP candidates Rajeev Chandrashekhar (Thiruvananthapuram), V. Muraleedharan (Attingal) and K. Krishnakumar (Kollam).
In Tamil Nadu, making a special appeal to first-time voters to vote for the BJP and its allies, Modi pledged to create a drug-free nation in the next five years. Regretting the rampant narcotic drug trafficking in Tamil Nadu, Modi said: “You all very well know under whose aegis drug sales is so rampant in Tamil Nadu. Your Modi, however, will not allow drug peddling and I vow to eliminate narcotic drugs from the country.”
Aptly playing the caste card by naming leaders belonging to the dominant communities in the southern districts, Modi also invoked the legacy of MGR and Jayalalithaa as he has been doing in his electioneering in the state.
The Prime Minister advised the electorate to remember the bad treatment meted out to Jayalalithaa by the DMK in the Tamil Nadu Assembly and the
DMK’s attempts to destroy MGR’s legacy, while they go to vote.
The Prime Minister also alleged that the Congress and DMK committed a historic blunder by ceding Katchatheevu to a foreign nation (not naming Sri Lanka). “I view it a great sin and it should not be forgiven as our fishermen are affected by that sin of the Congress and the DMK,” said Modi.
