NEW DELHI: Kicking off his campaign for the next Lok Sabha elections in the southern states here on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi came down heavily on the opposition parties.
Modi was on a day-long visit to the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh for the launch of several developmental projects as well as his poll campaign. He visited Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, Raichur in Karnataka and Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu.
Addressing a public rally in Tiruppur, about 470 km from the state capital Chennai, Modi said, “For us, social justice is an article of faith and not a mathematical formula, the way it is for the opposition parties.”
In Andhra Pradesh, PM Modi, in an attempt to establish a connect with the local audience, invoked the legacy of late Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N T Rama Rao and lashed out at TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu‘s move of aligning with the Congress.
Terming the 8-month-old JD-S-Congress coalition government in Karnataka a ‘majboor sarkar’, PM Modi dubbed its Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy a “punching bag” of everyone in the state.
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“Kumaraswamy has become a punching bag of everyone in the state, especially the Congress leaders, who have been threatening to unseat him from day one and challenging him daily,” Modi said at a massive BJP rally here, about 400 km from Bengaluru.
“The opposition parties want to thrust a similar ‘majboor sarkar’ at the Centre after the ensuing Lok Sabha elections. It is for the people like you to decide whether you want such a fledgling government or strong (mazboot) government, which the BJP is providing since 2014,” Modi told the gathering of about 1 lakh in the KLE Institution ground on the outskirts of the city.
The Prime Minister also accused the coalition government of betraying the farmers of the state by promising to waive their crop loans but not able to do even after seven months.
Slamming the ‘mahagathbandhan‘, Modi alleged nobody knows the agenda of the opposition alliance and they don’t have worthwhile answers to any question. “The only answer they have for all the questions is ‘ask Modi’,” he said.
Alleging that the opposition was good at spreading panic and misleading the youth, farmers and other sections of society, the Prime Minister said for a long time the opposition parties had created discord in society on the issue of social justice.