Bangarpet/Chikkamagaluru (Karnataka), May 9: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday lashed out at Congress president Rahul Gandhi after he publicly declared his prime ministerial ambition, and wondered whether the country will ever accept such an “immature and naamdar (famous)” leader for the post.
Taking his attack on the Gandhi family a notch further with barely a day left for the campaign to end, Modi said, “He (Rahul Gandhi) feels that the prime minister’s chair is reserved for one family and no one can sit on it. He feels it is an ancestral right (paitruk hak).”
He said the Congress leader was not bothered about his party, its legacy, senior leaders, or the country. “From morning till evening, while sleeping and while awake, he has only thing in his mind and that is the prime minister’s chair,” he said.
Modi’s attack on Rahul at his rallies in Bangarpet and Chikkamagaluru came a day after the Congress president said he was ready to occupy the prime minister’s post if his party emerged as the largest party in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, making known his ambition for the topmost executive post.
“The naamdar who does not have confidence in his alliance partners.who doesn’t care for the Congress’ internal democracy, whose arrogance has reached cloud seven, and is declaring himself that he would be the prime minister in 2019.will the country ever accept such an immature ‘naamdar’ leader?” Modi told election rallies.
“Yesterday in Karnataka and India’s politics something happened. All of a sudden one person came and he declared…(he) did not care about others who are standing in the line. (He) did not care about other coalition partners. “There are leaders waiting for 40 years..He came all of a sudden.and said I will become the prime minister,” the prime minister said during the final lap of his campaign blitz in poll-bound Karnataka, where voting will be held on May 12.
He asked the gathering whether it was not a reflection of the Congress president’s “arrogance.” He also wanted to know whether it did not show the state of internal democracy in the Congress party.
Modi also attacked the Congress for “defaming” institutions such as the CAG, CBI, NIA, ED and RBI by calling them wrong, and saying only the Congress is right and trying to “break the morale” of the Army and security forces by raising questions about them. “You might have seen in the last few elections the Congress is losing, and instead of accepting defeat by following democratic principles, they are lying by blaming EVMs,” he said. He said the Congress had defamed the Election Commission of India that is respected globally for its work.
“They have started defaming the EC after they started seeing defeat. For them, the EVM are wrong, the Congress right, the Election Commission wrong, the Congress right,” he said.
He said the Congress had also “doubted” the World Bank and global credit rating agencies by saying “Modi has bought these agencies.” “The Congress is playing a dangerous game and I want to alert our citizens. The Congress’ former president (Sonia Gandhi) and son (Rahul Gandhi) from the time they got bail in Rs 5,000 crore scam (National Herald case), from then on they have started attacking the country’s judiciary,” Modi said.
Continuing his tirade against the Congress, he called it a “deal party.” Modi said during Manmohan Singh’s tenure as the prime minister, the remote control of the government was with Sonia Gandhi, but in the four years of the his (NDA) rule, it was with the people. He also said the “Congress culture, communalism, casteism, crime, corruption and contract system” were the “six Cs destroying” Karnataka’s future. Modi told the crowd that it was now Karnataka’s turn to bid “goodbye” to the Congress.
PTI