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Hours before Gujarat goes to the first phase of Assembly vote (December 9), suspended leader Mani Shanker Aiyer continued to occupy centre-stage and replaced vikas (development) as the key plank, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi scaling up his attack and Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi trying to control the damage.
“When I became the PM, Aiyer went to Pakistan and, in meetings, said India-Pakistan relations could not be improved unless he (Modi) was removed from the scene. Did Aiyer give a supari (contract) to the Pakistanis for me?” Modi asked at an election rally at Bhabhar in Banaskantha district, bordering Pakistan, this afternoon.
He accused the Congress of not only abusing and denigrating him but also India overseas. “Without punishing it, the Congress cannot be reformed.”
Reacting to it, Gandhi told a rally at Pavi Jetpur in Chhota Udepur district, that the Congress is contesting the polls only on the issue of development. He said the party respected the PM’s office and asked workers not to use filthy language against anyone. However, he charged Modi with diverting the people’s attention from the real issues. “Although Aiyer has apologised, the PM and the BJP continued to use abusive words.”
In Ahmedabad, Congress spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala asked the PM and the BJP if they would also apologise for their utterances. “BJP MP Paresh Rawal dubbed our party as a bar girl, the BJP has been calling us termites, Modi called Shashi Tharoor’s wife a Rs 50-crore girlfriend, and the like.”
Modi, at a meeting in Kalol, said his predecessor, Dr Manmohan Singh, dilly-dallied in visiting Gujarat whenever he (Modi), as Chief Minister, invited the then PM. “On Thursday, in Rajkot, an elderly man, Mansukh Kaka, submitted a 250-page document to the former PM, enlisting scams of the UPA regime headed by Dr Singh himself.”
At Bhabhra, Modi reminded the people about the BJP government’s efforts to establish law and order after the “lawlessness” during the previous Congress regimes. He also recalled how the local Congress MLAs enjoyed hospitality at a Bengaluru resort in August when North Gujarat reeled under severe floods and Chief Minister Vijay Rupani camped there for days overseeing relief works.
He reiterated that in 1979 former PM Indira Gandhi, when she came to Morbi after the Machchhu dam burst tragedy, moved about with a clipped nose at a time when the RSS-Jan Sangh workers were cremating decomposed human bodies in the town near Rajkot. “The RSS-BJP have always been with you through thick and thin.”
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