By IANS,
Bangalore : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) star campaigner and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi Thursday exhorted the people not to vote for the “very aged” Congress or the “rag tag opportunistic alliance” Third Front, but the young BJP in the Lok Sabha elections.
Rounding off his day-long whirlwind campaign tour of Karnataka, Modi asked people to reject the Congress for having betrayed the ‘aam admi’ (commoner) by failing to check price rise, unemployment, farmers’ suicides, terror attacks and the impact of global recession on the Indian economy.
“The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), which rode to power in the
name of ‘aam admi’, made life miserable in the last five years with a series of failures on all fronts,” he said in his 30-minute address at an election rally in Govindrajnagar in the Bangalore South parliamentary constituency.
“The least it could have done was to maintain the food prices at the level where it was left behind by the Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2004,” he said.
“You must be aware that the Congress is a very aged party. What can a grand old lady do to the country at such a ripe age of 125 years?
“It is only a 30-year-old young party like the BJP which can take the country forward in the 21st century.
“The less said the better about the Third Front, which is rag-tag opportunistic alliance with no address.
“Some regional parties, which are part of the UPA government are trying to finish the Congress in their respective states,” Modi asserted.
Making light of the Congress manifesto, which promises to give rice and wheat at Rs.3 per kilogram to the poor, Modi said perhaps the Congress was not aware the BJP was already giving rice and wheat at Rs.2 per kg in Gujarat to green ration card holders through the public distribution system (PDS) since the last seven years.
“Similarly, the Congress promises to provide broadband across the country while every village in Gujarat already has broadband connectivity.
“The UPA government said it would take agriculture growth to four percent of the GDP (gross domestic product) but could not increase beyond 2.5 percent whereas Gujarat has achieved 14 percent growth over the last five years,” Modi said.
Terming the upcoming Lok Sabha elections crucial for the country, Modi said the future of India was at stake as the people had to make a decisive choice among a single family-driven party (the Congress), a hotch-potch Third Front and a nationalist party like the BJP, which is committed to put India on aggressive growth path.
Defending party’s senior leader L.K. Advani for branding Manmohan Singh as the weakest prime minister, Modi said he failed to censure his own cabinet minister Ram Vilas Paswan who favoured citizenship and voting rights to illegal immigrants from Bangladesh even after they infiltrated into the northeast region en masse and robbed the livelihood of the local people.
“While Assam and other northeastern states are worried about Bangladesh, Pakistan was worried of Gujarat on the other side of the country as I have secured the state from any intrusion from the western border,” Modi claimed.