THRISSUR: Politics in the district charged up yet again with Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers H Ananth Kumar taking jibes at Rahul Gandhi and former Defence Minister A K Antony after the tempestuous speech by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi at the fishermen union at Chavakkad.
“They need primary school re-education, considering the mistakes they are espousing. Rahul confused the ‘Make in India’ lion for a tiger and Antony certainly had his basic arithmetic mixed up when he said that the BJP Government has cut down on defence expenditure. In 2013-2014, Antony spent Rs 2 Lakh 3,000 crore on defence, while the Modi Government in its first year spent Rs 2 Lakh 18,000 crore and has allocated Rs 2 Lakh 46,000 crore, the highest-ever, for the 2015-16 budget,” he said.
He also added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the language of IT professionals, was ‘online real-time 24/7’.
“In the course of the next few weeks, we will be holding more than 200 big rallies and 5,000 jansabhas (public gatherings) throughout the country. They are not the year-end celebrations of the Government, just a means to spread the message of good governance in the country,” he said. He also described Modi as a person in top gear, Manmohan Singh in neutral gear and Rahul Gandhi as one in reverse gear. “In Kerala, both the LDF and the UDF scratch each others’ back and cover up the others’ corruption while in office,” he said.
BJP state president V Muralidharan said that the coming Aruvikkara bypolls would be a significant turning point in the history of the state. He also called for an investigation into the Malabar Cements scam and the death of Sasidharan.
He also emphasised that the Modi Government was not a corporate Government.