Gujarat’s chief minister and the prime ministerial candidate of main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Narendra Modi (centre), gestures after receiving a garland from his party supporters during a rally ahead of the 2014 general elections, in Mumbai, yesterday.
Mumbai: “Vote for India!” BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi made this appeal here yesterday. “I want that in the next election, people should not vote for a party but for the country,” he said at a huge rally here.
“The country is supreme... So, I say, ‘Vote For India’ to solve our problems,” he said. In a clear attack on Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi said the Congress was steeped in corruption.
“Yesterday I was struck listening to a senior Congress leader ranting against corruption,” Modi told a huge rally organised here by the Bharatiya Janata Party. “Look at their guts. They are steeped in corruption and they have the gall to speak against corruption,” Modi said in a ridiculing tone. On Saturday, Rahul Gandhi said in New Delhi that corruption cannot be tolerated.
Modi said Congress leaders did speak about corruption and black money. “(But) is it not their responsibility to control all this?” he asked loudly, the crowds roaring in approval.
Modi accused the corrupt in the India of stashing away their wealth in foreign banks. “Our problems don’t lie with population, geography, history or nature but are rooted in the successive Congress governments.
“If we want freedom from all the problems plaguing the nation, the country must be freed from Congress clutches,” Modi said to wild cheering.
Modi said both Maharashtra and Gujarat took birth on May 1, 1960. But since then while Gujarat had seen 14 chief ministers, Maharashtra had had 26 chief ministers.
“What kind of governance is here (Maharashtra)? One CM comes, another tries to chase him out,” Modi said, adding that the Congress used divide-and-rule policy to remain in power. Referring to neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, he said it was earlier known as “a sick state”. But after the BJP took charge of the state with Shivraj Singh Chouhan at the helm, there had been all-round progress.
Meanwhile, American diplomats were conspicuous by their absence at BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s rally in the wake of the chill in Indo-US relations.
The BJP had invited around 140 consulates and other diplomatic missions in Mumbai — besides 10,000 tea vendors — for the “Maha Garjna Rally”. But in view of the fury over the treatment meted out to Indian diplomat Devyani Khboragade in the US, the invitation to US consulate officials was taken back, BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy said on Saturday. BJP national executive member Raj Purohit, however, said Sunday that the invitation was not cancelled. “Only, there was no follow up from our side, and also on their side.”IANS
