Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: Niticentral.com
Date: March 28, 2014
URL: http://www.niticentral.com/2014/03/28/maoists-have-bloodied-the-land-modi-in-bastar-205019.html
 
Amidst a clear pattern of violence targetting districts where he is slated to address political rallies, BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi arrived four hours late for the Bastar segment of his Bharat Vijay rally on Friday evening and sharply attacked the Maoists for bloodying the land. Speaking to large crowds at the Kondagaon Stadium grounds in this Maoist stronghold, Narendra Modi condemned violence as destructive and unproductive. “No life can be returned once it has been taken,” he said, and pointed out that while democracy provides avenues for resolution of problems, violence does not.

Reproaching the invisible mentors who are misleading the youth for personal ambitions, Narendra Modi exhorted the youth to renounce the path of bombs and bandook and instead adopt the plough or the pen. India, he said, is the land of Gandhi and Buddha, “This is a time to live; let us join hands and move ahead”.

In an ominous development just hours ahead of the BJP rally, Maoists set fire to 12 trucks in Kirandul in Dantewada district, while on Thursday, two cellular phone towers were blown up ahead of the BJP rally in Gaya, Bihar.

The forthcoming parliamentary election, the BJP veteran said, is not merely about changing a Congress government for a BJP regime. Rather, the people wish to “punish” the Congress-dominated UPA for ten years of misgovernance, “desh ko barbaad kiya hai”. That is why each and every citizen is angry, he said. Alluding to the Congress and its friendly political parties, he said that they know what their status will be after May 16, and the knowledge of their sins (paap) has made them so fearful that instead of all opposition parties uniting to defeat the ruling party, the nation is witnessing the spectacle of the ruling party joining hands with other political parties to defeat him, “kahin Modi aa na jaye!”

Identifying himself with the ordinary citizens of the country, the BJP leader boldly asserted that he came from a poor family without a golden spoon in his mouth (a reference to Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi), and sold tea in childhood to help make ends meet. He said it was up to the people to choose between a ruler and a servitor. Alluding to Rahul Gandhi, he added, “woh naamdar hain, main kaamdaar hoon,” (he has a great (family) name; I have only my hard work to show).

Wooing the tribal population of this Adivasi belt, the BJP leader said that the four BJP-ruled States of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat had given maximum land rights (zameen ka patta) to tribals for their security and development. Chhattisgarh, which was part of the BIMARU paradigm when part of the undivided Madhya Pradesh, shed that derogatory label under the leadership of Dr Raman Singh, who has done so much for farmers that the rice-deficit State has become a rice-surplus State and the “chawal wala baba” has recently won his third term as Chief Minister.

Urging the people not to tolerate the Congress any more on account of the corruption, price rise and bad governance, he said, “inke paap ka ghada bhar chukka hai” (the cup of their sins is overflowing). If further proof was needed about Congress’s shoddy intentions, he said, it was provided in the manifesto released two days ago which repeated the inane promises of 2009 without any sense of shame or embarrassment about the broken promises.

But the height of corruption was the theft of coal. While people normally keep gold, money or precious objects in lockers, coal is something that just lies outside the home, no one steals it. But the Government at the Centre actually stole the coal (in mining scams) even as power stations that could generate 20,000 MW of electricity remain idle due to the flawed policies of the UPA. He exhorted the people to make the BJP victorious in all 11 Lok Sabha constituencies.

Meanwhile, at Hiranagar in Kathua district of Jammu province, where Narendra Modi addressed a huge rally on March 26, the terrorist attack that began on March 27 finally ended in the evening of March 28 with two civilians dead and three injured. The militants were heavily armed, according to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, and had planned to cause the maximum havoc possible, but were thwarted by the fierce response given by the Army, the CRPF and the BSF who together limited the fallout to the initial casualties.