The country will forgive mistakes committed but not betrayal,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally here on Tuesday. With the capital going to polls in a few days now, Modi launched an aggressive attack against the Aam Aadmi Party referring to it as “shameless” and accusing it of betraying the people.
“They said they did not ask for support but the party (Congress) extended it. He (Kejriwal) travelled in business-class and said he did not ask for it. Now they will take money and said they did not ask for it,” said Modi, carefully avoiding naming either the party or its leader Arvind Kejriwal.
Expressing surprise over the party’s “capacity to lie” to the public, he said it was amusing that the man who roamed around with names of Swiss Bank account holders did not know where his party donations came from.
The crowd erupted in ‘Modi, Modi’ every time he paused during his 40-minute-long speech.
There were several young and elderly voters in the crowd who were there to “hear Modi”.
People were seen posing with Modi cut-outs. Youths in the front tried to attract attention of TV channels with placards which read “tough vs cough” with photos of Kiran Bedi and Kejriwal.
Speaking from the grounds of Japanese Park in Rohini, Modi managed to attract applause for his consistent attacks on AAP from what police personnel put at was a 15,000-16,000-strong crowd.
Even though Modi did not name the Congress rivals Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, he launched a direct attack against Rajiv Gandhi.
“He tried to live up to the Mr Clean image. Look what happened when people found out what he was,” Modi said. Again, he seemed to be indirectly refering to Kejriwal’s claims of being honest.
“Even the media is not paying attention to the mother-son duo’s campaigning for the elections,” said Modi, mocking surprise at the “downfall”.
He drew references of Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Morarji Desai and Lal Bahadur Shastri and said these leaders were being “unfairly targeted”.
Highlighting the achievements of his tenure, he said an LPG cylinder cost Rs 1,240 earlier and costs half the price now.
He said he will take the responsibility of reviving 16 years which the Capital has lost during the tenure of a “major” party and the other “temporary” one.
“The one which was a bigger party had more capacity to cause damage. The temporary one was a small one with lesser capacity of damaging the Capital. Now it is my responsibility to improve the situation.”
He took a dig at his rivals for ignoring him as an “outsider” before the Parliamentary Elections. “They thought this man can only govern Gujarat. But you people accepted me. So now it is my responsibility to return the favour, which I will return with interest,” said Modi.
Referring to his foreign policies, he said the whole world was now “looking at India” and Delhi would be the face of development.
He concluded his speech by asking Delhiites to vote “collectively” on February 7, a theme constant through his rallies.
Modi will address the last rally before elections in Ambedkar Nagar on Wednesday.
DH News Service
