Cong will get fewer seats than Rahul’s age: PM at Chatra rally
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that the Congress party would win fewer seats than the age of its leader, Rahul Gandhi, underlining that the INDIA bloc has conceded defeat when only three phases of polling have been completed and hence is making remarks laden with negativity.
Addressing an election rally at Simaria in the Chatra Lok Sabha constituency, the Prime Minister also said that INDIA bloc leaders are deliberating on merging regional parties into Congress after the election results so that they together have the requisite numbers to gain the official status of Opposition in Lok Sabha.
Taking a swipe at Congress without directly mentioning Rahul Gandhi’s name, Modi said, “I want to tell you that Shehzade’s party would get fewer seats than his age.”
Modi often uses the term “Shehzade” to address Rahul Gandhi, inviting criticism from the grand old party’s leadership.
Quoting a “big leader of a regional party”, Modi said that the Opposition is planning to merge regional parties into Concriticised gress to gain the opposition space in Parliament.
“A big leader of a regional party recently said that regional parties should merge into Congress after the election. Initially, I could not understand why this statement was made. Why so much negativity? But after the trends emerging after three phases of polling, I can comprehend it. This has been said to ensure that they get together to manage to cross at least 10 per cent of the seats to gain the official status of Opposition in the Lok Sabha,” said Modi.
As per the constitutional arrangement, any political party staking claim to the official Opposition status in the Lok Sabha ought to secure a minimum of 10 per cent of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha.
The rally in Chatra, seeking votes for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates Kalicharan Singh (Chatra) and Manish Jaiswal (Hazaribag), is the fourth rally of Modi in the state.
The two seats, with Koderma, go to polls in the fifth phase on May 20. Addressing the audience, the Prime Minister also the alliance government in Jharkhand for the alleged rampant corruption in the state, besides accusing the state government of blocking development projects of the Centre.
Modi urged the audience to punish the INDIA bloc through their votes. “We recently saw a mountain of cash being recovered from a staff member of the PA of a minister. If a servant of PA has so much money, imagine the volume of black money stacked in the coffers of the ministers. ₹350 crore cash was recovered from the house of a Congress MP. It is the money of people looted by these leaders. Would you not punish them for this?” said Modi.
Jharkhand Congress chief Rajesh Thakur said the Prime Minister is talking about non-issues out of desperation because he knows he is on his way out.
“Modi can’t speak about the performance of his MPs because they have been non-performers. When Rahul ji used to speak about vaccines, he used to make fun of him. It seems PM has received feedback that he is not getting even 43 seats out of the 283 seats where voting has already taken place,” he said.