VIJAYAPURA, BENGALURU: On a day of hectic electioneering marked by multiple rallies and fiery speeches, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday continued his attack on the Congress, accusing it of trying to divide people and blaming its leaders for turning garden city Bengaluru into a “garbage city".
Addressing a rally in Vijayapura, his first for the day, Modi pointed out the role played by the Congress and its leaders in the Lingayat religion row and accused the party of “conniving and dividing the community.” The PM's statement comes at a time when the Congress has refused to make the Lingayat religion an election issue.
“When farmers in the state were suffering from drought and committing suicides, when there were no teachers in schools, ministers handling the portfolios were taking trips to Delhi to connive and divide the Lingayat community,” Modi said.
Speaking about the Lingayat issue extensively, he invoked Basavanna and the Congress’ “deliberate failure” to following his principles of “treating everyone equally”.
“Congress leaders believe that the son can't do anything and hence have asked the mother to come,” Modi mocked in an apparent reference to former Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s rally in Vijayapura that was scheduled after his.
In his concluding rally for the day in Bengaluru, Modi addressed the issue of financial frauds in the country. “Those who looted the country, perpetrated financial fraud, stashed money abroad would be brought back and to justice,” Modi said.
Modi assured the people of Bengaluru that his party was committed to transforming the city into a global city. “Lakes will be revived, infrastructure will be revamped,” Modi said even as he held Congress legislators from the city responsible for its ill-state without taking names.