Modi hits back at Sonia, says no party can be more poisonous than Congress

Banswara/Chittorgarh: Hitting back at Sonia Gandhi, BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Sunday said no party can be "more poisonous" than Congress as it has thrived on "poison of power" for almost half a century.

Modi also charged Congress with treating the poor merely as a vote bank and said in a democracy, a chai wallah, a pan wallah, a labourer or a farmer can become prime minister.

A day after Sonia Gandhi said BJP was a party of poisonous people, Modi said Rahul Gandhi had once recalled that his mother Sonia had compared power to poison.

"Madam's Shehzada once said in Jaipur that his mother told him that power is poison. They ruled the country for almost 50 years since Independence...then who has tasted poison for a longer period...it is Congress...then who else can be more poisonous (than Congress)," Modi said.

He was addressing election rallies at Banswara, Chittorgarh and Anta in Rajasthan. At Banswara, Modi said Rahul speaks about poverty only when media is around and asked why he hasn't done anything for people living in the slum adjacent to his house in Delhi.

Attacking the government over rising inflation, he said people should forget, and not forgive, Congress in the election as it had easily forgotten its promise made in the 2009 general elections of controlling prices in 100 days of coming to power.

"All the three leaders -- Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi -- visited Rajasthan, but none of them talked about inflation and did not say what their government did to control it," he said.

Modi said the tribal community had made great contribution to the country's Independence movement.

"But Congress propagates that only one family has made all the sacrifices for the nation. They have ignored sacrifices of tribals, but the fact is that the time period they spent in palaces is more than the time they spent in jails," he said.

Modi also said Congress makes fun of tribals. Addressing another rally in Chittorgarh, he said Congress thinks of the poor merely as a vote bank.

"Congress leaders say a chai wallah cannot become prime minister. But they don't know that in a democracy, a chai wallah, a pan wallah, a labourer or a farmer can become prime minister," he said.

Wooing voters in Anta and later in Kota, Modi flayed Rahul saying during his recent visit to the tribal belt of Barana he spoke about the poor but expressed no concern for farmers who were upset following damage to their soyabean crop due to adverse weather conditions.

The BJP prime ministerial candidate said the farmers did not get any assistance for crop damage, adding, "He (Rahul) does not know the condition of agriculture in the country nor he has any intention to care for farmers as we are doing in Gujarat."

"If a government sitting in Delhi adopts Gujarat model, which most of the Congress-ruled states reject, our farmers will fill the belly of people around Europe," he said.

"Rajasthan has got a BIMARU state tag while (BJP-ruled) Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh's agriculture growth have touched 10 per cent and 13 per cent respectively," he said.

Modi criticised the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre and Gehlot government in Rajasthan for not utilising unconventional sources of energy which, he said, his government had utilised as a model in Gujarat.

He attacked the governments saying it was most unfortunate that the country had gone in the hands of those whose "desh bhakti" was knee-deep in a family (Gandhi parivar).

"These people (Congress) do not see apathy of common man ... and they just look at chair and love to get it...hence, they play only vote bank politics....they have nothing to do with the nation's development," Modi said.

The BJP leader condemned Sonia Gandhi's remark made in Kota yesterday in which she had said free drug given to patients in Rajasthan was not poisonous, but BJP was spreading poison.

He said it was Congress and not BJP which was filled with poison.