IANS
Kangra, Nov. 2: Prime Minister Narendra Modi tore into the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh Thursday, saying that the party leadership had made itself a “laughing club” that was out on bail on corruption charges.
“We should appreciate their guts. They have the gall to claim there will be zero tolerance of corruption,” Modi told an election rally in this town ahead of Himachal’s November 8 Assembly polls.
He targeted Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who has been charged by the CBI of having disproportionate assets, saying: “Singh ‘saheb’ is claiming there will be zero tolerance of corruption. Can anyone believe him?”
“The Congress has become a laughing club. Their Chief Minister has a corruption case against him. He is out on bail. They have lost ground in all parts of the country.” He said this was not the Congress of Mahatma Gandhi “but of corruption, dynasty politics and casteism. “The Congress is rotten. When we say we want to get rid of the Congress, we mean to rid the country of decay.”
Modi said the Congress needed to introspect why a “generous country like India” was out to punish its leaders.
Calling Himachal a land of “martyrs and soldiers”, the Prime Minister said the Congress government had patronised “mafias in the Devbhoomi”.
“There are five monsters in Himachal Pradesh – the mining mafia, forest mafia, drug mafia, tender mafia and transfer mafia. These five monsters are looting your resources, future, spreading nepotism and snatching away the future,” the PM said.
Blasting Rahul Gandhi for meeting the Chinese ambassador during the stand-off in Dokalam, Modi said, “The leader whose father, grandmother and great grandfather were PMs, was insulting India. “Isn’t it an insult to India that these people held talks with Chinese leaders on Dokalam instead of asking the elected government?”
The PM also brought up India’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru with reference to the Jan Sangh, which he said was created to counter the Congress through the efforts of leaders like Shanta Kumar, a former CM and a BJP candidate. “Pandit Nehru… said they’d uproot the Jan Sangh,” Modi said.
