Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday sought a decisive mandate for BJP in the Maharashtra Assembly polls, saying the 15-
year-rule of Congress and NCP have destroyed the state.
Modi, who started his whirlwind campaign tour in the state on Saturday by addressing rallies at Beed, Aurangabad and Mumbai, however never once mentioned BJP’s former ally Shiv Sena.
“A generation has been destroyed with youth, farmers, women, tribals and backward classes not benefitting during the Congress-NCP rule,” Modi said.
The Prime Minister took a swipe at his detractors saying that instead of seeking votes, they were competing to criticise him.
“They are forgetting that people taught them a lesson in the Lok Sabha polls,” he said, adding they may face a similar fate in the assembly polls.
In Mumbai, Modi said the city had witnessed maximum terror attacks, and after Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra had seen the highest number of communal clashes.
Congress and NCP had failed to address the concerns of the youth who want development and want to rise above the politics of caste, creed and religion, he said.
Mumbai was “a mini-India” and whatever happens in the city is reflected elsewhere in the country, Modi said.
“I want to take all sections of the society along and climb new heights of development,” the Prime Minister said.
His government’s maiden budget offered tax concessions for the middle class, enabling saving of Rs 35,000 per person every year, Modi said, while promising that slum dwellers would get homes of their own by 2022.
The key projects in and around Mumbai such as Navi Mumbai airport, Sea Link and Metro would be completed and inaugurated in his tenure itself, he assured.
The decision to allow 100 per cent foreign direct investment in the railways will help strengthen suburban railway network in Mumbai, Modi said.
Kicking off his party’s poll campaign in Haryana on Saturday, he hit out at the Congress for the state’s backwardness.
Modi said that today the entire world was looking at India with greater respect and this had happened not because of him, but the power of 125 crore people of India, who had formed a strong and stable government at the Centre.
“Why has India’s pride increased today? It is not because of Modi, it is because 125 crore people of India have formed a stable and strong government in Delhi. This is your magic not Modi’s magic. Do you want that Haryana’s name also echo around the world.”
“Its first condition is that there should be ‘Congress mukt Haryana’. The second that a stable government with full majority should be formed. And third, there should be a government which lets Modi work in Haryana,” he said.
Attacking the ruling Congress in the state, Modi said that those who could not do anything for the last 60 years were now asking for his record in 60 days.
“The people who could not do anything in 60 years, they are asking for my 60 day record,” he said.
In his 30-minute address at a rally in Karnal, Modi, while describing the ruling Congress as “anti-farmer”, was also critical of the party’s claim that Haryana was No 1 State.
He said the state lagged behind in several parameters including literacy rate, per capita income, poverty alleviation, health, education, among others.
Modi also launched a veiled attack on main opposition INLD, asking the people whether they would like the State being governed from jail.
INLD President and former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala has been sentenced in the teachers recruitment scam.
Chautala, who is out on bail on health grounds, had said that he would take oath as the next CM from Tihar Jail. Seeking to connect with the farmers of the state.
Modi hit out at the Congress for stating that the Centre had imposed ban on Basmati rice export.
“I am surprised that is it necessary to speak lies in polls. I do not need to tell, but you know all my farmer brother and sisters are being misled, you are being told that Centre has imposed a ban on Basmati rice export, which is 100 per cent lies and injustice to the farmers,” he said.