Winding up his over two-month long campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday launched a blistering attack on the Congress and Aam Admi Party (AAP) in Punjab, saying that AAP is born from the “womb of a congenitally corrupt Congress”.
“In our childhood we used to hear a very interesting story. A woman gave birth to a boy. The nurse delivering the child found her ring missing. When everyone looked around, they found that the new-born baby was clutching the missing ring in his clenched fist. People said this child is a born thief because his father was a big dacoit,” the PM said, equating the AAP with the new-born child of the “dacoit” Congress at a rally in Hoshiarpur (Punjab) two days ahead of polling in the final phase of Lok Sabha elections on June 1.
“Aur isliye, Congress ko to brastachar me PhD karte karte saath saal lage, ye to janm se hi kattar bhrastachari paida hue hain,” (SFor the Congress, it took 60 years to do a PhD in corruption but they (AAP) became corrupt since their birth),” the PM said.
Sources say, the PM has so far addressed around 206 rallies, roadshows and events. He formally launched the poll campaign from Meerut in western Uttar Pradesh on March 31, billing it as “Gaurav Samaroh” to pay respect to one of the tallest Jat and farmer leader Chaudhary Charan Singh.
After the polling ended on Thursday, the PM flew down to the renowned Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, to reportedly meditate for the next two days, till the last phase of polling takes place. Congress has, meanwhile, asked the ECI to ensure that the PM’s meditation should not be used for direct or indirect campaigning. While Modi did not campaign in his own constituency, Varanasi, his close confidante and Union Home Minister Amit Shah addressed four public meetings in Eastern UP before reaching Varanasi to take stock of poll preparations. In his public meetings, Shah accused Samajwadi Party of indulging in appeasement politics. The Union Minister said during the SP’s tenure in the government in Uttar Pradesh, there would be “uninterrupted power supply during Ramzan and not in Janmastami”. He said the SP, together with the Congress, opposed construction of Ram temple.
Opposition Campaign
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi addressed rallies in Odisha, accusing the BJP and state ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) of jointly working for billionaires and not the poor, a theme that has been central to his campaign. The former Congress president also tried to seek sympathy by stating that the Centre filed 24 defamation and criminal cases against him and even the ED grilled him for 50 hours as he dared to challenge the BJP.
To amplify the opposition attack, former PM Manmohan Singh wrote an open letter to voters in Punjab asking them to not lose sight that this is the “final chance to ensure our democracy and Constitution are protected from repeated assaults by a despotic regime”.
His three-page letter was a strong critique of Modi’s handling of the economy as the veteran Congress leader charged the NDA regime of hurling the “unimaginable turmoil” in the Indian economy over the past decade. “The imposition of the demonetisation disaster, a flawed GST (goods and service tax), and the painful mismanagement during the Covid pandemic has resulted in a miserable situation, where an expectation of subpar six to seven per cent GDP growth has become the new normal,” Dr Singh said.
In the seventh and last phase of the elections, 57 parliamentary constituencies across eight States, including, UP, Punjab, Bihar and Odisha, and Union Territories will go to polls before the results would be announced on June 4.