Wardha/Nagpur (Maharashtra), April 19 (IANS): Taking umbrage at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statements attacking the Congress at an election rally in Wardha, the state party Chief Nana F. Patole countered them as "false and politically motivated", here on Friday.
At the poll meeting, PM Modi slammed the INDIA bloc and Congress of being anti-development and anti-farmers owing to which the condition of the tillers had deteriorated in the state.
Refuting the contentions, Patole termed the PM’s statements as false, baseless, and politically driven, arising out of despair as the Bharatiya Janata Party sees a defeat in the 2024 elections.
Patole emphasised that massive and magnificent development of the country took place on all fronts in the 60 years of Congress rule from Independence till the Modi government came to power, they started ‘cursing’ the Congress, and are now forced to seek votes in the name of religion and Lord Ram.
“India stood tall and strong before the world… If there was an air of depression in the country as alleged, then such all-around progress would not have been achieved during the successive Congress regimes. However, the BJP is only seeing gloom everywhere and blaming others for its failures,” said Patole.
The Congress Chief added that the PM’s statements seem to convey an impression that everything started happening in the country only after 2014 to misguide the people.
“In the Wardha rally, PM Modi made unfounded accusations against the Congress, Rahul Gandhi, and the INDIA bloc. The BJP, which has continuously insulted great icons like Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj, B. R. Ambedkar and others, has lost the right to seek votes in their names,” said Patole.
Taking a potshot, Patole pointed out how a ‘Jal Pujan’ was performed in December 2016 for a grand memorial to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in the Arabian Sea off Mumbai, but even after eight years not a single brick has been laid for it, though the BJP invokes the great Maratha’s name to seek votes.
On the ‘Modi Guarantee’ listed out by the PM at the rally, Patole hit out saying that “people feel absolutely cheated” and do not believe in such fake guarantees any more, adding that the Maha Vikas Aghadi-INDIA bloc candidates will bag all the five Lok Sabha constituencies which voted on Friday in Maharashtra.
“The masses feel they are taken for a ride with the promises to give crores of jobs to the youth, the Minimum Support Price for agriculture produce to double the farmers’ incomes, cheating the people with huge inflation, forcing people to leave the country and other ills. You cannot sell the country’s assets and then term it as development, the voters have realised this,” said Patole.