Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: Niticentral.com
Date: April 3, 2014
URL: http://www.niticentral.com/2014/04/03/modi-targets-dynasty-dubs-vadra-as-baazigar-207177.html

In his first ever direct attack on the Congress’s paramount family, Narendra Modi surpassed his usual eloquence by asking a gigantic gathering in Gurgaon, Haryana, if there was any magician (baazigar) among them who was flat broke and suddenly acquired a fortune worth Rs 50,000 crore in just three months. Jovially giving a hint, he said some people took lands from farmers and made this kind of money in three months. As the crowds broke into thunderous applause, he roared, “shehzade, is this what is happening in your house?’

On a brisk tour of Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh on the ninth day of his Bharat Vijay Rally on Thursday, Narendra Modi rubbed salt in the wounds of the Congress ruling family by asking the crowds, “do you know the name of this baazigar?” As they chanted “Vadra” in unison, he asked, “unke kya lagte hain?” (what relationship does he have with them, an allusion to Rahul Gandhi). Obligingly the crowd chortled, “Behnoi” (brother in law).

Narendra Modi rested his defence against the Congress vice president’s statement that the country needs 125 crore watchmen and not just one (Modi) with the retort, “will those who did the Coal scam, 2G, Adarsh, be chowkidars of the national treasury?” Gurgaon, it may be recalled, is the district where Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra first became famous for questionable land deals, to hush up which the State Government victimised IAS officer Ashok Khemka. The Aam Aadmi Party gave its nomination to the IAS officer who cleared Vadra’s controversial deals.

Ridiculing the Congress vice president, the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate said that the ‘shehzade’ had said in a recent interview that he had the full infrastructure map of India in his mind, but if the party took 60 years to conceive a map, it would take 600 years to realise it. The basic input for any infrastructure, he asserted, is electricity, but vast swathes of the country suffer in darkness as power stations that could generate 20,000MW of power have been shut down for want of coal and workers rendered unemployed. This is because the coal mines have shut down due to the scandal in the allotment of mines, which is now being looked into by the Supreme Court, he said.

The effective cure for corruption, he told his enrapt audience, is to place at the top a person with the guts not to be corrupted. Those who live for the chair cannot change anything, only those willing to die for the nation can end the “beimaani ka raj”. The Hooda Government in Haryana and the Congress-led UPA in the capital have been in power for 10 years; their son, daughter, damaad are running the country, he said, but they have brought no improvement in the lives of the people. Cautioning the people not to elect a Government controlled from behind a curtain like puppets (an obvious allusion to Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh), he urged them to give the BJP and its alliance all 10 seats from the State.

Earlier at Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, UP, at a gargantuan rally in favour of Gen VK Singh on the birth centenary of late Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, Narendra Modi said the late Army Chief was an inspirational leader who would have felt tortured if he were alive to see the conduct of the UPA regime. Hailing from one of the world’s micro minority groups (the Parsis), he rose to become Field Marshall because the Indian Army was never tainted by communal colour; its sole religion is the defence of India.

Loudly denouncing the politics of vote-banks, the Gujarat veteran said that the UPA, “Madame Sonia ji ki sarkar,” tried to impose a communal census on the armed forces (at the behest of the Sachar Committee), but the armed forces stoutly resisted it. Looking at the electoral scene today, he continued, it is evident that the Congress is desperately communalising the atmosphere. Sonia Gandhi’s ‘spies’, he mocked, have been on the alert for the past six months to somehow catch him on the wrong foot, but he has only talked about “development, employment for youth, water for irrigation, safety of mothers and daughters, all issues on which the Congress has no reply”. Its lame response to every challenge is secularism first, he taunted.

The Congress is in difficulty, he pointed out, because it has no case to win the elections. The party never dreamed that one day a “chai-wala, son of a poor mother, will seek accountability for its performance in office,” and does not know how to deal with him. The secularism mantra is no longer working as people have seen through these gimmicks. Hence, standing at the brink of defeat, the leader herself is resorting to the old trick of “rank communalism, ghor sampradayavad,” he said, referring to the reported statement of Sonia Gandhi asking the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid to ensure that Muslim votes are not split. This seeking of votes on the basis of religion, he said, is against the law, and “it is now 24 hours; the TV and media have covered it widely; I urge the Election Commission that suo moto action by

The BJP, he continued, is inspired by nationalism and not hunger for power. He welcomed the Congress candidate for Ghaziabad, Ramesh Tomar, who gave the party a jolt by joining the BJP and attending the rally in support of Gen VK Singh.

Questioning the continuing suicides by farmers all over country, Narendra Modi said that the experience in Gujarat showed that linking farming with animal husbandry and milk production buttressed farm incomes. Both Uttar Pradesh and Haryana have requested Amul Dairy to extend its operations into their States, and this has tripled the income of those with milch cattle.

But while the nation favoured the White and Green Revolutions, he said, the UPA was promoting the Pink Revolution under which animals are being butchered for export. This is making meat more expensive for domestic consumers and denuding whole villages of animals, which will soon have a deleterious impact on agriculture and small farmers. Yet it is the slaughter houses and mutton exports that are getting a subsidy, and a crisis is developing in the villages, he warned.

Mocking at the Congress promise to create 10 crore jobs after doing nothing on the promise made in the 2009 manifesto, Narendra Modi pointed out that all countries emphasise skill development of youth to make them fit for employment. But under the UPA, a committee headed by the Prime Minister himself has not held a single meeting; such is its commitment to the youth and the nation.

At Pipli in Kurukshetra, Haryana, Narendra Modi recalled the intimate connection between Dwarka in Gujarat and Kurukshetra, where Sri Krishna delivered the Gita Sandesh. On this land, he predicted, only purity would triumph no matter how powerful the evil, and hence Congress would not be able to open its account in Haryana this time. The Arya Samaj founder, Swami Dayanand Saraswati also hailed from Gujarat, but came to Haryana to preach his message to the people of the region, who remain deeply

Given the significance of this bhumi, he said, it is unfortunate that tourism around Kurukshetra is neglected by the Centre and does not figure in the Incredible India advertisements. The problem, he told the people, is that your elected representative (scion of a prominent industrialist family) only looks after his business interests and has no time for the region, though tourism could benefit the entire State. Alluding to this family’s involvement in the coal scam, the BJP veteran said that the Congress was suppressing and misusing the CBI, but when BJP comes to power it would force all those who have looted the country to account for their actions. He lamented that the sacred Saraswati has been reduced to a drain (nala) and that the water surplus State now suffers water shortage.