Modi asks people to vote for India

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) much hyped “Mahagarjana Rally” launched here on Sunday afternoon showcased its leaders’ skills in mobilising crowds ahead of 2014 elections but the party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi seemed to have lost his touch in stirring the people.

Addressing around a lakh people gathered under the bleak winter sun at the three MMRDA grounds at the Bandra-Kurla Complex, Modi asked people to “henceforth eschew from voting for any ‘dal’ (group or outfit) and instead ‘vote for country’”.

“It is time that we had a new mantra – ‘vote for india’ – so that we will be free from the divisive politics, end poverty, give employment to people, improve education, respect for women, self-respect and a better and powerful India,” he said.

Before rounding off his speech to the restless crowd brought in hordes from hamlets outside the periphery of Mumbai’s satellite towns, Modi harped on his favourite theme of bashing Congress and Rahul Gandhi praising Gujarat governance.

He said that any government, “can achieve goals only if it works for the development and its intentions are clear. Good governance is the root to all success. Everybody is fed up of the Congress which only indulges in politics of divide and rule. The Congress has learnt this lesson very nicely from none other than British. It divided independent India into three parts and now it is bent on dividing the nation once again in the name of religion, caste, region or even water.”

Without taking any name, Modi, in his usual acerbic manner, attacked Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for his take on corruption in a function held in New Delhi on Friday. “Yesterday, I was struck listening to a senior Congress leader talking on corruption. Just look at their guts. It is really an irony that while one’s own party is steeped in graft, here comes a person sitting on a lofty pedestal talking on corruption,” he said.

During his speech at a corporate function, Gandhi had said that “corruption would not be tolerated”. Modi asked the audience: “They (Congress) speak about corruption and black money, but are they not in power? Is it not their responsibility to control all this?”