Narendra Modi on Tuesday set a new political milestone of 300-plus seats for the BJP-NDA and urged the people to defeat the conspiracy of the Congress-UPA-Third Front parties to avenge their certain defeat at the hustings by ensuring a weak and unstable Government at the Centre. Addressing a gargantuan Bharat Vijay rally at Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, on Tuesday, the BJP’s Prime Ministerial contender indirectly alluded to Defence Minister AK Antony’s overture to the non-BJP parties to unite to keep the BJP out of power as it was almost certain that the Congress would not be able to form or lead the next Government.
Later in the afternoon, at Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, he accused his rivals of sabotaging his campaigning and sought an enquiry by the Election Commission.
For the past two days, Congress leaders have been saying that the next Government should be unstable and weak so that it is difficult to rule the country, Narendra Modi said, and expressed disgust at the attitude that no one should win if the Congress loses. “This is not desh bhakti,” he thundered. “The issue is not whether Modi will be Prime Minister, but the future of the nation is at stake. No matter who forms the Government after the elections, the new Government should get a full majority and be strong and stable. This is a large country, it cannot be allowed to be ruined by people who cannot form the government but want to create confusion and squeeze lemon juice on the aspirations of the nation”.
Appealing to the nation to defeat this conspiracy by the BJP rivals, namely the Congress-UPA-Third Front parties along with the SP and BSP, he said that in the comity of nations, only the Prime Minister of a strong and stable nation would command respect. The country has already lost 10 years of growth and cannot waste any more time, Narendra Modi said, appealing for all 80 Lok Sabha seats from UP and 300-plus in the country.
The current contest, he emphasised, is between the ‘naamdars’ (those with illustrious family names) and the ‘kaamdar’ (one who worked hard), a servitor and not a ruler by mentality. Narendra Modi said that when he was first declared as the Prime Ministerial candidate of the BJP, the Congress was delighted because it felt that it could easily vanquish him and that its victory was certain. But when the winds of change blew from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, there was consternation, though the Congress consoled itself saying that the BJP would not get any allies. “But what happened,” he asked rhetorically, and answered that the party won around a dozen new allies from Tamil Nadu to Jammu and Kashmir. The critics then carped that ‘Modi cannot run a government, he only has the Gujarat experience’, but when the whole country flocked to hear him speak, panic set in and now his rivals have cooked up the instability game, he told his attentive audience.
The Congress leaders, he mocked, chant an “election-time mantra, garib garib garib, in the hope that the poor will rescue them from defeat. But now this subterfuge, this making the people April Fools for 365 days, has been understood”, he said, as the crowds roared with appreciation at the April Fool’s Day joke.
Deriding the Congress vice president for calling poverty “a state of mind”, Narendra Modi charged that “those born with a golden spoon cannot know the pain of poverty”. Taunting the Congress leaders for their excessively privileged backgrounds, he asserted that “one who has never walked barefoot on the ground does not know (the sharpness of) the thorn; one who has never slept hungry does not know hunger”. He berated the Congress for allowing food grains to rot for the benefit of alcohol manufacturers, thus disrespecting the hard labour of the farmer while ignoring the Supreme Court’s advice to distribute it among the poor. “Kya ye garibon ke liye prem hai?” he said.
Lambasting the ruling party for repeatedly making false promises to the people, he said that just as the 2009 promise to provide one job per family proved hollow, so too would the promise to create 10 crore new jobs. The time, he insisted, has come to get rid of the Congress-UPA, SP, BSP, who have done nothing for the people.
Contrasting Bareilly with the more famous Rai Bareilly (constituency of the Congress president), Narendra Modi said the constituency was more developed due to the hard work of BJP leader and former MP Santosh Gangwar. Twisting a famous Hindi film song, he exhorted the people that this time the “jhumka” (ear-ring) must not fall in Bareilly but the Congress, SP and BSP!
Striking a personal rapport with the crowd, he said that the manjha (kite string) of Bareilly was an intrinsic part of Gujarat’s kite festival. But whereas Gujarat has lifted the kite-making trade from a meagre worth of Rs 35 crore to Rs 500 crore (which mostly benefitted the poor Muslim artisans), the Bareilly string-maker has been ruined by an influx of Chinese manjha, while the regime in Lucknow sleeps and the one in New Delhi cannot even be expected to wake up to the crisis.
The trouble, he said, is that bureaucrats sitting in air-conditioned rooms prepare schemes on paper that are unworkable and hence the nation stagnates. What is needed is to listen to the voices from the ground, to link up with the wishes of the people and use their energy to the best advantage. Apologizing to the people for being almost two and a half hours late, Narendra Modi said the delay was due to Palam Airport not clearing his helicopter for take-off. He hinted that this appeared to be deliberate.
By the time he arrived three hours late for the meeting at Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, a visibly angry Narendra Modi accused the Centre and the State Government of sabotaging his public programmes and urged the Election Commission to investigate the matter. He said that after a two and a half hour delay at Delhi, he was again delayed for one hour at Lucknow airport, for no good reason.
Challenging the Congress-UPA regime to openly declare that they would not let him canvass for the Parliamentary elections “if you are so scared of me”, Narendra Modi said this was a very serious issue that should not happen in a democracy as it is for the people to decide to which competing party they wished to entrust the reins of the nation. Declaring that the Government at the Centre was “certain to be defeated”, he apologised for the inconvenience caused to the people waiting for him at the venues of five rallies, and urged the people to elect a strong and stable government with 300-plus seats so that the nation can ascend new heights of progress and prosperity.
Assailing the direction the country has taken in the past 10 years, the BJP leader said that the people of Madhya Pradesh are familiar with what a BJP government can do for them, as the State has shed its shameful BIMARU status due to the stupendous efforts of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. It was now India’s turn to rise out of the dross, he said, and urged the people to give the BJP a handsome victory in all seats.
Narendra Modi wrapped up his speech as soon as possible in order to touch base with the people at his scheduled rallies at Beohari, Satna and Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh). Observers said the attempts to scuttle his rallies reflected panic on the part of the ruling dispensation and was reminiscent of the screening of the popular film, Bobby, on television in the hope of keeping the people away from Babu Jagjivan Ram’s rally at Jama Masjid after his startling defection from the Congress.
Niticentral.com, 1 April 2014
http://www.niticentral.com/2014/04/01/narendra-modis-new-target-300-206230.html