Widening his attack on the corruption of the Congress-dominated UPA and its disinterest in cleaning its stables, Narendra Modi condemned its decision to field Pawan Kumar Bansal and Ashok Chavan for the Lok Sabha elections and said this was part of a mindset that refused to combat corruption.
Addressing gigantic rallies at Gohana in Sonipat, Haryana, and the Union Territory of Chandigarh on Saturday evening, the BJP Prime Ministerial candidate questioned the Congress logic of removing Pawan Kumar Bansal from the Railway ministry and then giving him the party ticket from Chandigarh. Similarly, the Chief Minister who had to be removed because of the Adarsh housing scam owing to the furore in Parliament and strictures from the Supreme Court, has again got the party ticket, and this proves that the Congress has “no will to fight corruption”.
Addressing Chandigarh, Punjab, Himachal, Jammu & Kashmir, and Haryana, he said the people must stop the wind of corruption. Punning upon the names of the candidates in the city, he said, “ye pawan yahin par gaad do, yahin rok do; ab desh ko vikas ki kiran dikhni chahiye…”
Corruption and bad governance, he said, are like diabetes that corrodes the human body from within and leaves it prey to deadly diseases. Corruption shuts the door on growth and progress, the Gujarat veteran explained, and cited as an example the border check posts on the Gujarat – Maharashtra border where the same vehicles check-in, yet the collection on the Gujarat side is Rs 700 crore more than in Maharashtra! This is because Gujarat has introduced technology to end corruption, but corruption is a way of life with the Congress. Gujarat had similarly done away with interviews and recruited 13,000 teachers through a computerised system of selection which may not be perfect but it had eliminated the scope for ‘discretion’, he said.
While winning or losing elections is routine in democracy, Narendra Modi observed that in the current election the people feel that the incumbent regime is a burden (bojh), a blight (sankat), something that has not happened before. People, and especially the poor, he said, need clean governments so that their children can be educated properly in Government schools and move ahead in life.
Targetting Chandigarh’s huge population of ex-servicemen, Narendra Modi said that when a soldier was beheaded and his head taken away, when his widow went on fast to demand that his head be recovered and the Chief of Army Staff did not know how to console her, when the blood of jawans was boiling, in that atmosphere the Prime Minister of Pakistan dared to come to India on a visit. What was worse, he thundered to cries of ‘shame, shame’ from the gathering, was that he was given a red carpet welcome and a grand ‘chicken biryani’ banquet. “Can we trust such a Government to keep the country safe” he asked. Berating the Congress vice president for claiming that he had succeeded in getting ex-servicemen ‘One Rank, One Pension’ in just three days, Narendra Modi said that the truth is that this has still not happened.
Chandigarh, he observed, is a Union Territory and hence under the control of the Union Home Ministry, but the Ministers change often and find no time to visit the region and develop it. Yet it has the potential to emerge as a major hub for education and should have its own IIM, IIT and AIIMS. It could also be a major hub for tourism given its proximity to Himachal Pradesh and Amritsar; this could generate huge employment for the unorganized sector.
Alluding to criticism of cine star Amitabh Bachchan for promoting Gujarat Tourism, Narendra Modi said that the Congress thinks that merely getting some actor to say something on television is enough to kick off tourism, but the reality is that a lot of hard work was done to prepare the infrastructure to double the State’s tourism.
The Congress, he mocked, is worried that the 80-year dominance of one family is being challenged by a ‘chai wala’. Ridiculing those born with a golden spoon in their mouths, he proclaimed that it was time to end the politics of dynasties. It was also time to end the misuse of secularism to cover up failures in addressing the basic needs of the people, especially unemployment, housing problems, the safety of women, and price rise.
At Gohana, Haryana, a State with a large population of ex-servicemen, Narendra Modi mocked at the UPA for its inability to settle the issue of the date of birth of the then Army Chief.
Directly refuting Rahul Gandhi for his statement that “one man cannot do anything,” the Gujarat Chief Minister said that his own understanding of history and tradition was that one man can do a lot. Taunting the ‘boy with the golden spoon’ to listen, Narendra Modi said that when India became independent, there were hundreds of little kingdoms that wanted to be independent. At that time, Sardar Patel single-handedly united the whole nation. But one man (Jawaharlal Nehru) was responsible for just one state – Jammu and Kashmir – and that one man could do nothing!
Saying he respected the Congress leaders also, he offered another example from the party. While Rahul Gandhi said that poverty is not real and is a state of mind, his grandmother Indira Gandhi had given the call for “garibi hatao” (remove poverty). By thus disregarding history, he (Rahul Gandhi) was pouring acid on the wounds of the poor. The BJP leader chided the Congress vice president for not feeling any shame or remorse for his statements.
Attacking the Congress for its disrespect for the Ram Setu and alleging that Sri Rama was not an historical figure in the face of the beliefs of millions of Indians, Narendra Modi said that the party which used the name of Mahatma Gandhi to gain power should know that when Gandhi was alive, in his prayer meetings the song raghupati raghava raja ram was played daily, and on his samadhi the name of Rama is written. If Congress has the courage of its convictions, he challenged, it should wipe that out, mita do himmat hai toh?
Niticentral.com, 29 March 2014
http://www.niticentral.com/2014/03/29/congress-led-upa-a-burden-narendra-modi-205403.html