Tumakru: Turning the tables on the Congress, which has called the JD(S) the BJP’s “B” team, PM Narendra Modi on Saturday claimed everyone was aware of its “dosti” (friendship) with the JD(S) and demanded that it make it clear whether it had a pact with the party in Karnataka.
Training his guns on the Congress and JD(S), he said, “You can’t fool people any longer. Everyone knows you have ‘dosti’ in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), which shows you have a secret pact. The Bengaluru Mayor is from the Congress, thanks to the support of JD(S) and you have a friendly fight in Tumakuru district. The JD(S) is trying to rescue the Congress in these elections too.”
The PM, who was addressing a rally here, said JD(S) supremo H.D. Deve Gowda had earlier said that he would commit suicide if he became PM in 2014, but he told him his services were needed for the country. “I wished him to live for 100 years in the pink of health,” he added.
Lambasting the Congress for making ‘garibi’ (poverty) its mantra and fooling the people for 60 years of its rule, Mr Modi alleged that it was now chanting the mantra of ‘kisan’ (farmer) to grab power although it had done nothing for the farmers.
Claiming that his government was “washing the sins” of the Congress, he said farmers would have reaped gold if it had irrigated their land across the country.
“The people of Tumakuru have been waiting for the last 50 years for their land to be irrigated. But they (the Congress) are not interested in farmers’ issues,” he said.
Dubbing the Congress ‘anti-development’, he said it was not interested in completing pending irrigation projects such as the Upper Bhadra. “The people want to know what both the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) have done for the completion of this project and why it has been delayed. The Congress’s promise to bring Hemavathi water to Tumakuru proved to be hollow and even the Yettinahole drinking water project has failed to make any headway. But the Bharatiya Janata Party will take up the Hemavathi-Netravathi river linking project to provide drinking water to lakhs of people and irrigate thousands of hectares in eight districts,” he promised.
Promising that the Bharatiya Janata Party, if voted to power in Karnataka, would revive the coconut plantations in the district, he deplored that although Tumakuru had been selected for the smart city project, the Siddaramaiah government had spent only Rs 12 crore of the funds released.
Justifying his government’s decision to make Aadhar mandatory for several welfare schemes, Mr Modi said this was necessary to root out corruption. “The Congress government had corrupted the administration so much that girl babies were created in files, grown in them and married and widowed in them only to loot pension,” he charged.
