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AICC President Rahul Gandhi waves at his supporters during a road show ahead of the Karnataka Assembly election in Bengaluru on Wednesday. PTI Photo[/caption]
Chikmagaluru (Karnataka), May 9 (IANS): In the final lap of his campaign blitz in Karnataka, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday launched a sharp attack against Congress President Rahul Gandhi, saying a “dynast” aspiring to be the Prime Minister was sheer “arrogance”.
Addressing back-to-back rallies at different places in the southern state, which votes on Saturday to elect a new government, Modi said Congress leaders were arranging big meetings and conspiring to remove him.
Taking a swipe at Gandhi, Modi said he was day-dreaming of becoming the Prime Minister in 2019.
“There is a leader of Congress who thinks only about one thing throughout the day - how to be the Prime Minister. Such is the arrogance of the ‘naamdhaar’. This naamdhaar (dynast) doesn’t care about others who are standing in the queue.
“He came like a bully, marched his way ahead when there were others waiting with so many years of experience. How can someone just declare himself the Prime Minister? This is simply nothing but sheer arrogance.”
He said Gandhi with an “inflated ego despite losing 25-30 elections in the last four years” didn’t even bother about the leaders who have been waiting for 40 years and about other allies in the UPA.
“The Congress has lost in almost all the states in the last four years. But the ego of the ‘naamdhaar’ is still bloated. He says he will become the Prime Minister in 2019. Isn’t this his ego?”
During an interaction with prominent citizens in Bengaluru on Tuesday, the Congress President had replied in the affirmative when he was asked if he was ready to be India’s Prime Minister if the Congress emerges as the largest party in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
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.
Modi also accused the Congress, which has been in power in Karnataka for the last five years, of not doing justice with the aspirations of the people of the state and instead bringing six evils -- “Congress culture, communalism, casteism, crime, corruption and contract system” -- to the country.
He said Congress leaders were out on bail in a Rs 5,000 crore scam and had “absolutely no respect for many of our prominent institutions like the Election Commission, CBI, Army, Enforcement Director or Vice President’s office.
“The Congress has been on a spree to disrespect and belittle these great institutions,” Modi said, adding that they were were now questioning the judiciary and even calling for impeachment of the Chief Justice of India.
The Prime Minister also attacked his predecessor Manmohan Singh, who on Monday criticized the BJP government for its “disastrous policies” and “economic mismanagement”, leaving the country with crises that were avoidable.
“When Manmohan Singh had his government in the Centre, the remote control was at 10, Janpath (official residence of former Congress President Sonia Gandhi),” he said.
Under his rule, Modi said, it were the people who held the remote control.
The Prime Minister said he would continue to follow the orders of the “high command” -- the countrymen, the citizens.
Two persons were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly keeping about 10,000 voter cards and over a lakh counterfoils at a flat in Bengaluru’s Rajarajeshwari Nagar assembly segment, a senior police officer said.
“Two persons have been arrested, one for committing the electoral offence of keeping several voter cards in one place and another for breaking into the apartment where the voter cards and counterfoils were kept, without informing the Election Commission authorities,” Additional Commissioner of Police Bijay Kumar Singh told IANS here.
State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sanjiv Kumar told reporters here on Wednesday that a total of 9,896 voter cards and over a lakh counterfoils resembling acknowledgement slips were seized so far from a flat in the Assembly constituency, ahead of the May 12 assembly election.
Police and Election Commission officials, however, did not disclose the details of the people arrested.
“Preliminary investigation shows that the voter cards are genuine, but the counterfoils are yet to be verified,” Kumar said.
An FIR was registered on the incident, he added.
Along with the voter cards and counterfoils, the poll panel officials have also seized survey formats with names of the voters, mobile numbers, caste, Aadhaar number, below poverty line (BPL) card details, and photographs of houses.
The constituency has a total of 4,71,459 voters, with an elector to population ratio of 75.43 per cent, which is higher than the average across the total 28 constituencies in Bengaluru.
A Deputy Election Commissioner is to soon visit the state to take the stock of the situation.
The ruling Congress blamed the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after the incident, calling it a conspiracy by the party leaders in an apartment that allegedly belonged to a former BJP corporator Manjula Nanjamari.
“In a flat owned by a former BJP corporator, and in a flat rented out to a BJP corporator candidate, how did 10,000 voter IDs come into being? Facing imminent defeat, this is a conspiracy hatched by the BJP leaders,” Congress spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala told reporters here.
The BJP urged the EC to countermand the election in the constituency, calling the incident an attempt by the ruling Congress to allegedly rig the election.