Ktk govt "gold medalist" in graft, Cong leaders "drunk on

The Karnataka government is a "gold medalist" in corruption and Congress leaders are "drunk on power", Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today, as he gave an adrenaline boost to the BJP's election campaign in the state days before it goes to poll.

Flagging nationalism, Modi flayed the Congress for "insulting" national heroes and the Army.

He rubbished pollesters' prediction about a hung Assembly and asserted that the BJP would form a government on its own as people have made up their mind to "demolish the Congress's last fortress".

Days after castigating Congress president Rahul Gandhi for "insulting" former prime minister H D Deve Gowda for calling his JD(S) the "B team" of the BJP, Modi asked people not to "waste" their votes by backing Gowda's party as it was going to finish "a poor, distant third" in the elections.

Under attack over the BJP giving tickets to the controversial Reddy brothers, allegedly involved in a mammoth mining scam, Modi launched a counteroffensive against the Karnataka government, accusing it of thwarting the Centre's attempts to check illegal mining by not formulating a mining policy.

Dubbing the Siddaramaiah government as "seedha rupaiah government" (corrupt), a punning allusion to the chief minister's name, Modi said an ordinary man cannot get done any work without bribing officials. "Because of this seedha rupaiah government Karnataka is immersed in debt," he told an election rally in Ballari.

Addressing a rally in Bengaluru, he called the Siddaramaiah government a "gold medalist in corruption where there is competion between departments and ministers over who is more corrupt."
Seeking to turn the tables on the Congress for its criticism of the BJP over Reddy brothers, Modi said,"The honesty of Ballari is being insulted...as if only thieves and looters live in Ballari."