JOIN USThe BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, who addressed a rally in Punjab on Sunday, first stepped up his rant against the Congress, castigating the UPA government led by the party over “corruption”, and then took potshots at it over its announcement on the “one-rank-one-pension” initiative.
He also seemed to subtly reach out to UPA ally National Conference (NC).
Modi mentioned Union Minister Farooq Abdullah among the leaders from whom he learnt how to run an administration. He said, “I worked with Bansi Lal, Parkash Singh Badal, Om Prakash Chautala, Farooq Abdullah and I saw how an administration is run. These senior leaders helped me a lot with administration
Ahead of the general elections, the alliance between the Congress and the NC, which was earlier a part of the NDA, has not been as strong as before. Modi minced no words in describing the UPA’s decision on “one-rank, one-pension” for ex-servicemen as “fraud” with the armed forces. He said the UPA presented 10 budgets and failed to implement the initiative. “Even this time they have only announced it, but this is ‘fraud’. Had the Congress been honest, it had the chance to it in 10 budgets from 2004 to 2014. But they did not do it,” he said.
In an unsparing mood, Modi said he was surprised the Congress too was talking of corruption when the entire ABC (A for Adarsh scam, B for Bofors scam and C for Coal scam) of corruption has become the party's alleged corrupt activities. He did not miss out on an opportunity to strike a chord with farmers in this agrarian border state.
He said the farmers' predicament would be addressed if the Food Corporation of India (FCI) was split in three divisions for better functioning. Of the three divisions, one would be dedicated solely for procurement and the other two for storage, warehousing and distribution.
Modi blamed the UPA for the rotting of food grains in godowns when the poor were starving.