By IANS,
Faizabad (Uttar Pradesh) : Firebrand Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Narendra Modi Sunday left many surprised as he focused on the theme of development and altogether skipped the issue a grand Ram temple while addressing an election rally near Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.
Though the Gujarat chief minister addressed a large crowd for about 45 minutes at a venue eight kilometres from the controversial Ramjnmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site, he only once mentioned Lord Ram and underlined that “development alone can change the destiny of this country”.
“Do you think the people sitting in power in New Delhi should have the discretion to decide where Ram was born? Wasn’t Ram born here and wasn’t he married to Sita?” he asked the gathering.
“By raising such questions, some people were trying to question the very existence of Ram,” he said.
He then swiftly turned his attention to development. “Development alone is the key to success,” he said and urged people to focus their energies in that direction.
“You must rise against the politics of caste and the vote politics of appeasement. This is the time for propagating the politics of development,” he called out amid crowds that went into intermittent and echoing cries of “Jai shree Ram”.
“Today you can see how the cotton grower in Gujarat is thriving, while a cotton farmer was committing suicide in some other states,” he added.