RAHUL’S CLAIM TO PM POST IS DISRESPECTFUL, ARROGANT: MODI

BANGARPET/CHIKMAGLUR: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday dismissed Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s remarks that he is ready to become the PM if the party emerges as the largest in Parliament in the 2019 general election, calling him an immature and arrogant “naamdar (dynast)”.

Modi did not name Gandhi, who made the remarks at a town hall in Bengaluru with the city’s prominent citizens on Tuesday. It was the first time Gandhi acknowledged that he would be willing to take the country’s top job at a time when several Opposition parties are trying to cobble together a federal front against the ruling BJP.

Modi said “someone” had made an important declaration that “I am going to the PM”. “He came like those bullies, barging his way ahead when there are others who have many years of experience. How can someone just declare himself the PM? This is simply nothing but arrogance,” Modi said at an election rally in Karnataka’s Bangarapet.

Big meetings are being organised to remove him as the prime minister, Modi said, and wondered how the “big leaders” who attend these meetings will react to the sudden announcement by one ‘naamdar’ that he is going to be PM.

“The naamdar who does not have confidence in his alliance partners... who doesn’t care for Congress’s internal democracy, whose arrogance has reached cloud seven, and is declaring himself that he would be the prime minister in 2019 . .... will the country ever accept such an immature ‘naamdar’ leader?” Modi said.

Taking his attack on the Gandhi family a notch further with a day left for the Karnataka election campaign to end, Modi said, “He (Rahul Gandhi) feels that the prime minister’s chair is reserved for one family and no one can sit on it. He feels it is an ancestral right (paitruk hak).”

He said the Congress leader was not bothered about his party, its legacy, senior leaders, or the country. “From morning till evening, while sleeping and while awake, he has only thing in his mind and that is the prime minister’s chair,” he said. It is India first for the BJP, Modi said, and family first for the Congress.

The Prime Minister also launched a no holds barred attack on the Congress calling it a “deal” party. “

“Congress is only interested in deals. And, I am not saying this...it is a Congress MP and former CM Shri (Veerappa) Moily who said this. When tickets were sold, he said that Congress will have to solve their ‘money problem’ and also blamed the PWD (public works department) minister for dealmaking,” Modi said.

The PM said communalism, casteism, crime, corruption and a contractor system were the six evils that the Congress has brought on the nation. “The Congress patronises courtiers who only bow to Delhi not the aspirations of the people. Karnataka does not need such a party in the government,” he said.

At his second rally in Chikmaglur, Modi accused the Congress of thinking only about power and blamed late former prime minister Indira Gandhi and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi for doing little for Karnataka, despite winning parliamentary elections from the state.

“Congress party, after facing defeats in every election, are busy criticizing the EVMs (electronic voting machines) and the Election Commission. For them EVM and EC are wrong and only Congress is right,” Modi said.

At another rally in Belagavi, the PM said he failed to understand why he was the Congress’ only agenda. “The Chief Minister was campaigning for a Congress candidate whose name is also Narendra...but he only kept saying Narendra Modi and praised Narendra Modi too...the truth seems to have come out,” he said at the rally.

On the seizure of thousands of alleged fake voter ID cards and 100,000 Form-6 applications (voter registration forms) for the inclusion and transfer of voters from an apartment in Bengaluru, Modi said, “Looking at defeat in front of them, as their tricks did not work, they have started a new game.”

“I want to tell the people to be alert till May 12 (the day of voting)...The Congress shamelessly is using undemocratic means,” he added.

The Congress hit back at Modi asking him if he thought he was the only one who had the right to be Prime Minister. “Is Narendra Modi the only one with the right to be the Prime Minister?” Congress spokesman Anand Sharma asked.