Modi takes on Rahul Gandhi over 'sermons' on corruption

Blames Congress for India's backwardness and misgovernance

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) prime ministerial candidate for the coming Lok Sabha elections, Narendra Modi, on Sunday stepped up his attack on the Congress, squarely blaming it for playing divisive politics for votes. Speaking at a rally in Mumbai, he also took a dig at the party’s vice-president, Rahul Gandhi, who had, in his address to industry captains the previous evening, spoken about the need to fight corruption.

The rally, in which special arrangements had been made for Mumbai’s tea vendors — a gesture seen by many as a reply to some Modi critics who had claimed a tea vendor could not become the country’s prime minister — was also attended by BJP President Rajnath Singh and senior leaders Nitin Gadkari and Gopinath Munde.

“I am told chaiwallahs have special VIP passes for this rally. For us, the poor are VIPs,” Modi said.

Without naming Gandhi but calling his speech “doublespeak” by a party accused of being “immersed” in graft, Modi said: “I heard the speech of a big Congress leader yesterday. He was speaking against corruption... No one else can dare to do such a thing. These people are so immersed in corruption. And yet, they make innocent faces and speak against corruption.”

It was important that the country be freed from the Congress rule, said the Gujarat chief minister, blaming the ruling party for all the problems India was facing. Reiterating his party’s resolve for a “Congress-free India”, Modi said “Congress governments are responsible for our backwardness”.

“The dream of a Congress-mukt Bharat has to be fulfilled. Call must go out for a Congress-free India. The Congress learnt ‘divide and rule’ from the British rulers. We must end its vote-bank politics,” Modi said at the well-attended rally in Northwest Mumbai’s plush Bandra-Kurla Complex.

Modi also called for voting for the country, and not a party, in the 2014 polls. “Votes should be sought for the country and not in the name of a party. We want to say, vote for India,” he said.

In his attack on Gandhi, Modi said the Congress leader was making “innocent” speeches against corruption in Delhi, even as his party’s government in Maharashtra had trashed the Adarsh scam report that indicted its key ministers. “The Congress government decides to protect the corrupt and this leader talks of fighting corruption,” he said.

“Congress is all about minorityism. That’s their culture. The prime minister has announced packages in the country’s 90 districts where Muslims are in a majority. Asked in Parliament about the expense in these districts over the past three years, they said not a penny had been spent... That’s their vote-bank politics.”

Representatives from around 140 consulates in Mumbai had also been invited to the rally. But, in view of outrage in India against the US over the recent case involving Devyani Khobragade, the country’s deputy consul general in New York, the invitation to US consulate officials was cancelled at the last moment. Modi also said the BJP-ruled states, including Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, were examples of good governance, transparent administration and pro-incumbency. He also praised Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan for spearheading development work in Madhya Pradesh and bringing the state out of the Bimaru category.