Gujarat iron man says bury vote bank politics

BY A GT REPORTER

PANJIM: Gurjrat Chief Minister Narendra Modi yesterday gave a clarion call to bury vote bank politics while urging the voters to vote for development with security. He was addressing a largely attended public meeting at Shivaji Maidan, Bicholim in support of North Goa BJP candidate Shripad Naik.

Modi said that the country was caught in the web of vote bank politics, which has eaten into the vitals of the country. The only solution is to bury vote bank politics and in stead go towards the politics of development. “Development is the only answer,” said Modi.

Coming down heavily on Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s reported statement at Mumbai where he said that the first riot on the national resources was that of the Muslims. Strongly denouncing this, Modi said that this is not in the spirit of the Constitution.

“I say the first riot on the national resources of our country is that of the poor. The country requires a strong Prime Minister whereas the current Prime Minister is weak,” he told the crowd.

Elaborating further on this issue, Modi quoted Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Ram Vilas Paswan, who had said that that the Bangladeshi intruders must be treated as citizens of this country, be given a right to vote and to contest elections. “If you are as strong Prime Minister then why did you not remove Paswan from his ministerial post for his anti-India talk,” Modi asked.

He said that the Assam was being intruded by Bangladeshis and added that the situation was turning difficult for Assam due to vote bank politics of that government. On the contrary, he termed the Gujarat government as that of patriots.

He was disturbed over the government’s earlier moves of indulging in head count of Indian army on the basis of religion, which was subsequently aborted due to opposition from the army.

Turning his attention to terrorism, Modi came down heavily on Congress party’s criticism over BJP handling of Kandahar issue. “The Congress is criticising BJP for having exchanged terrorists for hostages. Who had stopped the Congress, when in the opposition from opposing this BJP’s step? The Congress was quiet before there was unanimous demand in the country, which wanted the government to get all these hostages back. He also cited other examples like Rudaiya Sayeed kidnapping episode and Char-e-Sharrif incident to expose the Congress party’s hollow game over terrorism issue. He also referred to other incidents like Mumbai train blast, Bihar flood and the naxalite issue to portray a green picture in the country under the UPA regime.

If voted to power, Modi said that the BJP would get the illegal monies deposited in Swiss banks to be used for the development of the country and in the interest of the poor.

In his concluding remarks, he posted three questions to the Prime Minister. Quoting the CAG report Modi said that in 2007-08, a sum of Rs 50,000 crore has been taken away from Indian treasury. He wanted Dr Manmohan Singh to explain this matter. In his second question, he drew Dr Singh’s attention towards Harshad Mehta scam and Satyam scam and said that both these matters occurred during the reign of Dr Manmohan Singh as Union Finance Minister and Prime Minister respectively.

“What did you do to stop this,” he asked the Prime Minister. Finally, he appealed to the people to vote for BJP to enable them to deliver a decisive government under a strong leader.

Others who addressed meeting were Shripad Naik, Leader of the Opposition Manohar Parrikar and MLAs Francis D’Souza, Dayanand Mandrekar, Laxmikant Parsekar and Rajesh Patnekar. Pernem MLA Dayanand Sopte conducted the meeting.