New Delhi: BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Sunday seized upon Rahul Gandhi’s public denunciation of PM Manmohan Singh and his government and said that it had encouraged Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif to make purportedly derisive comments about Manmohan Singh. At a well-attended rally here, the Gujarat chief minister brought up Sharif’s purported remark likening Singh to a “village woman”, and said this was unacceptable. “Nawaz Sharif, ye aapki kaun si aukat hai which allowed you call Singh dehati aurat (how did Nawaz muster the courage to say this). There cannot be a bigger insult of India and its prime minister. This nation of 1.25 billion will not tolerate its prime minister’s insult,” Modi thundered, egged on by the rambunctious crowd.
Stating that Manmohan Singh was a “sardar but not asardar” (impactful),Narendra Modi said Sharif was emboldened to pass snide remarks about the PM because he was facing attacks from his own party, referring to Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi dismissing an ordinance passed by the government as nonsense.”In crude language, I just want to say that Congress vice-president ne pagdi uchaal di hai (Singh has been humiliated by),” Modi said. While he played the statesman recently at Rewari, a dusty Haryana neck of the woods, on Sunday Modi chose to showcase his transformation into a dyed-in-the-wool nationalist. The barely 80-odd km distance between Rewari and Rohini, where he addressed yet another sea of humanity, was not a deterrent. It seemed Modi was carrying out a course correction after he was seen as being soft on Pakistan in Rewari. He also spoke about getting back PoK from under Pakistan’s control. Many will find it amusing that while Modi chose to be soft on Pakistan in Rewari, a rally organized for former Army men, here he actually said that Singh’s authority had been undermined at a time when he needed to ask Pakistan to free PoK from under its control. He said the widows of slain soldiers wanted Singh to bring back the remains of beheaded soldiers.
Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit accusing her of shirking her responsibilities by passing the buck “up or down. Narendra Modi said. Addressing a major rally here, Modi raised the issue of December 16 gangrape incident as well as corruption in hosting of the Commonwealth Games in the capital in 2010 and ridiculed Dikshit saying “Sometimes I think if there is any happiest Chief Minister in our country, then it is the Delhi Chief Minister. Morning to evening, she has no work to do except for cutting ribbons,” he said amid loud cheers from the over lakh-strong audience. The BJP Prime Ministerial candidate, whose speech was interrupted a few times by the boisterous crowd which chanted his name, said the Delhi Chief Minister does not have to worry about a host of issues that her counterparts in other states have to take care of but still she fails to fulfill her responsibilities. She does not have to look at the agriculture department, irrigation department or animal husbandry department. She does not have to worry about irrigation nor the problems of the fishermen. And if there there are any potholes on the roads of Delhi she puts the responsibility on the municipal corporation. If there is a law and order problem, she just has to say the police forces in Delhi function under the Central government. She does not have any responsibility, Modi said. Talking about the December 16 gangrape incident, Modi accused the Chief Minister for doing nothing to ensure safety of women in the capital. When innocent girls are raped in Delhi, incidents like the Nirbhaya case happen; the Chief Minister says ‘I am also a mother and any atrocity against girls hurts me’ and suggests that all girls should return home early in the evening. What is your responsibility then? The Chief Minister of Delhi takes no responsibility. She either blames it on somebody above or below her,” the Gujarat Chief Minister said. He said the response from the people clearly indicated “a strong pro-BJP mood” in Delhi and people do not want to tolerate “misrule” of Congress anymore.
As he engaged the crowds, who forced him to stop several times with chants of “Modi Modi”, the Gujarat CM tried to show himself as above partisan politics by asking people to raise their voice in support of the PM ahead of his crucial meeting with Sharif. Gujarat CM Modi said despite his differences with Singh, he would not tolerate any insult to the PM from abroad. He said the country needed to decide whether the writ of the Constitution or shahzade, a term he used repeatedly to describe Rahul, was going to prevail. Going by the way Rahul is behaving, he said, “pariwarshahi (family) is smothering lokshahi (democracy)”. Modi sought to rub it in further when he recalled Singh’s earlier statement that he was willing to work under Rahul. “I now want to ask the other Congress stalwarts if they want to follow the Constitution or shahzade,” he said. Moving on to his favored corruption theme against the government, Modi said the country was suffering because of the series of scams on the UPA’s watch. “This government is mired in corruption. Instead of finding solutions to problems, it has stopped functioning. This government is paralyzed. The UPA government is immersed in Gandhi-bhakti. The Gandhi-bhakti refers to currency notes which they are collecting in tonnes,” he said. He went on, “There are governments within governments… maa ki sarkar, bete ki sarkar… damaad ki sarkar… coalition partner’s ki sarkar.” However, Modi received almost maniacal response when he came down on the PM for describing India as a poor country before US President Barack Obama. He accused the PM of glorifying and selling India’s poverty. “He met Obama and said ‘Obama ji, I have come from India… garib desh ka PM hoon’. Instead of groveling like that, why couldn’t the PM just say that I have come from a country where 65% of the people are below 35 years of age? Matha sharam se jhuk jata hai (I’m forced to hang my head in shame),” Modi said.
“You behaved just like those filmmakers who sell India’s poverty in the West to win awards,” he said. Taking it further, he sought to know from the PM if he was actually referring to India’s actual poverty, as seen on the streets, or poverty as a state of mind. “Because as per the shahzade’s definition, poverty is a state of mind,” he said, in yet another jibe at Rahul. Modi said the BJP had made its position amply clear about the ordinance on convicted politicians sent by the Congress to President Pranab Mukherjee. Modi seemed overwhelmed in the end as he complimented his party and ordinary workers for making his rise possible. Modi seemed to have a lump in his throat as he paused, wiped the sweat (some said tears) off his face and said he was just an ordinary guy who used to serve tea in trains. “Nath nahi ,das hoon. Look into my past and trust my work,” he said, signing off with frenzied cries of Vande Mataram.
Bureau Report
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