Bengaluru:
With the date of polling less than a week away, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stepped up his tirade against the Congress, saying the party which once reigned from panchayat to parliament would be reduced to “Punjab, Puducherry, Parivar” entity at the end of Assembly elections in Karnataka.
Mr Modi, who addressed back-to-back rallies in Gadag, Tumakuru, Shivamogga and Mangaluru, mocked at the party saying “After May 15 (the day results of elections are declared), Indian National Congress will be reduced to PPP Congress-P for Punjab, P for Puducherry and P for Parivar (Family). He trained his guns on Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his government, charging it was a “corruption tank” with a pipeline connected to New Delhi, "where the money reaches directly". He also accused the top Congress leadership of auctioning tickets, party positions and even the chief minister's post. He accused the Congress of "auctioning" party tickets and posts, and recalled how a string of scams rocked the erstwhile UPA government.
Mr Modi said despite a string of electoral losses in Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Tripura the Congress was not as worried as it is now when defeat stares it in the face.
“One of your Reddy friends, G Janardhana Reddy, conducted Rs 500 crore wedding for his daughter at the height of demonetisation, your party president's son, Jay Shah saw a 16000 times growth in the revenue of his company in two years, why are diesel & petrol so expensive when international crude oil prices are half of what they used to be before 2014?, instead of advising the youth to sell pakodas why don't you focus on job creation, and why don't you intervene in Mahadayi & call a meeting of three CMs?"
In an indication of things to come, the day began with his handler attacking the BJP's poll advertisements in various newspapers, saying, "The BJP is using its money power to splurge on advertisements. But the viciousness of these ads exposes their lies & hypocrisy. People of Karnataka know the difference between unsubstantiated corruption charges & real scams in which the BJP CM & his half a dozen colleagues went to jail."
