Modi woos Mumbai slumdwellers, promises homes by 2022

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Saturday sought to reach out to Mumbai's slumdwellers promising each of them homes with water and power connections by 2022.

"The poor and slumdwellers have sweated and toiled hard for Mumbai. I pledge to give them their own homes with water and power supply by 2022. The same will be given to all poor in the country," Modi said, addressing his maiden rally in Mumbai for the Oct 15 assembly elections.

Acknowledging the importance of Mumbai and Maharashtra, he noted that if Mumbai lags, the whole country lags in progress and development.

"Maharashtra and Mumbai were once reputed as the country's commercial powerhouse. We have to regain that status," he urged, asking the people to vote in his Bharatiya Janata Party with full majority in the state.

Lashing out at Congress-Nationalist Congress Party's 15-year rule, Modi demanded to know what exactly Mumbaikars got in their reign.

"Where have the maximum number of terror attacks taken place, how many were punished? But all they (Congress-NCP) did was change chief ministers and deputy chief ministers. 3,700 farmers commit suicide in Maharashtra thought the country's agriculture minister (Sharad Pawar) was from this state. But they were not bothered," he said.

He lamented that if the past 15 years of this state had not been destroyed under the Congress-NCP), the people of the state would not have suffered so much.

"Maharashtra and Mumbai's loss are directly linked to the country and affects the whole nation as Mumbai is a leader on various fronts. We have to raise Mumbai to its original glory by bringing quick progress here," Modi urged.

This was Modi's third rally in Maharashtra, after addressing meetings in Beed and Aurangabad in the Marathwada region of the election-bound state.