Modi dares Rahul to speak for 15 mins on Congress govt’s achievements

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday posed a challenge to Congress president Rahul Gandhi to talk for 15 minutes on the achievements of the Congress government in the state in any language he is comfortable with, without reading out from a piece of paper.

The prime minister also dared the Congress chief to pronounce properly the name of legendary engineer and statesman Sir M Visvesvaraya, at least four to five times in his speech.

Speaking at a rally here to campaign for 22 BJP candidates from Mysuru, Mandya and Chamarajanagar districts, Modi said the Congress chief has been asking just 15 minutes of his time to listen to him (Rahul) in Parliament, which has been denied for a long time, according to him. His remarks that I can’t sit for 15 minutes to listen to him is a compliment for me. I am not a ‘naamdaar’ (one who is after name and fame) like him, but a ‘kaamdaar’ (a workaholic).

“I dare the Congress president to speak in Hindi, English or the mother tongue of his mother to deliver a speech in Karnataka for 15 minutes, without reading out from a piece of paper, on the achievements of the party government... people of Karnataka will draw their own conclusion,” he said.

Modi depended on the ‘’naamdaar-kaamdaar’” jargon for most part of his speech to attack Rahul.

“The election on May 12 is not just to choose your representative, but it is a process to choose the future of Karnataka. Even Lokayukta does not have security in Karnataka, what type of security can common people expect? Even a senior IPS officer had complained about political interference in the functioning of the police department. The Congress government is lagging behind in implementation of the Central projects. While the Centre has sanctioned the Bengaluru-Chamarajanagar railway line via Kanakpura long ago, the state government has not shown any progress on land acquisition for the project,” he said.

Modi said that with the completion of electrification of 18,000 villages across the nation on May Day, the Centre would embark upon another initiative to provide power connection to four crore houses in these villages free of cost.

“On May 1, Leisang village in Senapati district of Manipur became the last village to be electrified under Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana. The Congress leaders do not know history and they have no vision for the future. In 2004, the then AICC president Sonia Gandhi had set a target of electrifying all deprived villages by 2009. But, till the BJP-led NDA came to power in 2014, nothing was done on this front. The NDA has achieved the task on time,” he said.