POLL CAMPAIGN
“Congress survives on one family. But now the family can’t vote for the party candidate. For the first time, the family will have to vote for a non-Congress candidate intheconstituencywheretheylive because they don’t have a candidate,” Modi added.
Describing the INDIA bloc a grouping of selfish parties that have come together to protect their corrupt practices, he said the alliance has been rejected by voters in the first phase.
“Can you trust such people?” he asked people at the rally. “After June 4, an all-out fight will break out among the INDIA bloc members. You need to teach them a lesson in elections,” Modi said. The prime minister thanked voters for coming out in large numbers to exercise their voting right in the first phase of elections. Next 25 years will be years of India’s greatness in the world, he said.
“I want to congratulate and thank people, especially the firsttime voters. As per the information I have received, voting has been one-sided in favour of the NDA. I thank you with a bowed head,” he said.
Modi urged people to step out to vote in large numbers although there is heat, farmers are busy and theweddingseasonison.“Soldiers always do their duty of protecting the country’s borders irrespective of any season... you are not doing anybody a favour but securing the country’s future,” he said.
While there was no direct response to the PM’s comments, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi chargedtheBJP-RSScombineand a handful of billionaires with posing a threat to democracy and the country’s Constitution, to which “Dalits, tribalsandthepooroweall that they have”.
Addressing an election rally at Bhagalpur, his first in Bihar, Gandhi also drew a contrast with the previous UPA government headed by his party, claiming the amount of debt written off under the Narendra Modi regime was “25 times thefarmers’loanswehadwaived”.
“I would like to give you some startlingstatistics. Thecountryhas 22 individuals who own wealth thatisequivalenttotheholdingsof 70crorepeople. Thereare70crore people in the country who are surviving on less than Rs 100 a day,” claimed Gandhi.
The former Congress president claimed that “Modi has waived debts, of not more than 25 people, whichamountstoaboutRs16lakh crore”.
“Do you realiSe it is 25 times the amount of farmers’ loans we had