Faizabad (UP): With the portrait of Lord Ram providing the backdrop, Narendra Modi on Monday asked people “living” in the birthplace of the Hindu deity to teach Congress and those who support it a lesson for not fulfilling electoral promises.
Modi skirted any reference to his party’s pet theme of building Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, which is part of the district and epicentre of Ram Mandir movement, but made several references to Lord Ram to exhort people to defeat Congress, SP and BSP and support BJP.
“This is the land of Lord Ram where people believed in ‘pran jaye par vachan na jaye’ (one may lose life but cannot break promise). Can you pardon those who broke their promises?,” the BJP prime ministerial candidate said a rally, referring to the ruling party’s unfulfilled promise of providing 10 crore jobs to people.
He also took on SP, which is in power in UP, and Mayawati-led BSP, saying they are enemies in Lucknow but friends in Delhi. “They save the government of ‘maa-beta (Sonia-Rahul)’. The Congress saves them from CBI. It protects netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav) from CBI. They believe in you scratch my back, I scratch yours. “I, from this land of Lord Ram, promise you that I will fight corruption my whole life. Where do I get the strength to speak this? I have lived this my whole life,” he said.
The SP and BSP governments spend their time in settling scores with each other. “Law and order is so bad that people prefer buying guns to providing medical care to their parents and good education to their children,” he said.
Modi urged people to elect as many BJP candidates in UP as they can as it was necessary for a strong government at the Centre. UP has 80 Lok Sabha seats.
Reminding people of the “weak” UPA government, he said people are not happy if their local police official is supine and nor are students happy if their teacher is not effective.
“How can then a country of 125 cr people be happy if their government is weak. Do you a limp government? You choose BJP candidates from all 80 seats in UP and I will give you a strong India,” he said.
Touching on his upbringing in a poor family, he tried to touch a chord with the people of the largely impoverished state, saying he knew what poverty was and would do everything in his capacity to help them come out of it.
As Modi spoke, chants of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ came from the audience. (PTI)
