The BJP on Thursday fielded one of their best-performing ministers and senior leader Nitin Gadkari to accuse the Congress of lowering the political discourse during the campaign with invective and personal slander against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while the BJP is only fighting on “performance and development”.

At a press conference at BJP headquarters, Gadkari said the Congress’ “NYAY (basic minimum income) lacks credibility because for 70 years, the opposition parties and different prime ministers — from Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh — gave the Garibi Hatao slogan but India continues to be a rich country with a poor population.”

He said the Congress has no credibility. “After 1947, Nehru said he will remove poverty. Then Indira Gandhi said the same using Garibi Hatao slogan but poverty was not eradicated.”

“Rajiv Gandhi repeated that followed by Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, but poverty persists. Now, even Panditji’s (Nehru) great-grandson is saying the same thing. If he (Congress chief Rahul Gandhi) will remove poverty by giving ₹72,000, then what did Pandit Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Manmohan Singh do? That is why the political credibility of the Congress in removing poverty has ended,” he said. Gadkari said the Congress had a history of injustice and since 1947, it had been responsible for “wrong economic policies, bad and corrupt governance, and visionless leadership”. He also recalled 1984 riots and the Congress’ complicity.

“NYAY will not happen as the person doling it out should be trustworthy. And how can they talk of justice when they have not delivered justice to the victims of 1984 riots and rewarded the accused,” he said. He said the BJP and PM Modi, who only worked on the principle of “minimum government, maximum governance”, are now being showered with “a total of 56 choice of abuses like chhappan bhog (56-course meal)”.

“We did what we promised. We made the waterways and that is why (Congress leader) Priyanka could travel from Prayagraj to Varanasi on a boat while abusing us continuously.

I want to ask her, had we not made the waterway, how would she have done that? She could drink the water thrice because we have cleaned the Ganga water,” he said.

Confident of win

The Minister said this election is about “Modiji’s performance and development”.

“The politics of performance and development is our biggest asset. Our schemes have reached every nook and cranny of this country. We will form a BJP-led NDA government with a record mandate,” Gadkari said

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