Congress asking for votes in name of retirement, JDS seeking survival of its ‘family’: PM Modi in Karnataka

Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular (JDS) ahead of the Karnataka assembly elections on Tuesday, saying the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is seeking votes for development while the Congress is seeking votes for retirement and the JDS is seeking votes to ensure the political survival of its family.

Addressing a public meeting at Sindhanur, PM Modi said, “BJP is the only party which has the road map of development. The double engine has the resolve and the power.”

He stated that the BJP’s sole purpose and resolution is to make Karnataka the number one state in the country. Only the BJP’s dual-engine government can achieve meaningful progress.

“Interestingly, BJP is asking for votes in order to bring development in Karnataka and Congress is asking for votes in the name of retirement. JDS, on the other hand, is asking for votes to ensure the political existence of its family,” PM Modi said.

He said, “The biggest cheating, Congress and JDS governments have done is with the villages of Karnataka, the farmers of Karnataka. Right since the independence, Congress had been looting the country, had been blocking the ways furnishing development to the villages of the country.”

Every BJP worker, PM stated, has remained firm against the “appeasement politics” of the Congress and JDS.

He said, “Congress-JDS never paid attention to the real needy due to appeasement policy. The problems of Lingayat, Banjara, Lambani Samaj and Kurba community were also pending for years. For the first time, the BJP government gave the identity of villages to their settlements. Hakku patra were given to thousands of Banjara families. This has given confidence to every section of the society that BJP will solve their problems too. Today the appeasement of Congress has lost to the gratification of BJP.”

He stated that Congress has neither an issue nor a vision for progress.

“Not only me, but the whole country is wondering over the way Congress has been behaving. Everyone is feeling ashamed of the activities of Congress, the language of this Party’s leaders, their words, their ego…everything has been absolutely awful,” PM Modi stated.

The Prime Minister’s comments come in the wake of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge’s “venomous snake” statement on PM Modi.

He said, “Whenever there is a crisis in the country, then the leaders of Congress and JDS have done politics on that crisis also. Nowadays civil war is going on in Sudan. There is hue and cry. We are working day and night to bring back each and every Indian safely, but Congress leaders did politics on this too and provoked many families.”

“Congress cheated farmers in the name of providing waivers whereas the BJP ensured welfare for farmers through excellent initiatives like PM KISAN Yojana. You have seen the ‘Corruption Kaal’ of Congress, now you are seeing the ‘Amrit Kaal’ under the BJP,” PM Modi said.

He stated that the BJP and the dual-engine government want Karnataka to be the number one state in the country. According to Prime Ministers, the BJP has opened over 9,000 Jan Aushadhi Kendras across the country, which supply people with affordable and high-quality medications. According to him, the BJP’s initiative has saved the country’s poor and middle-class citizens Rs 20,000 crore.

PM Modi, who is in Karnataka for an election campaign, conducted another election campaign event in Chitradurga on Tuesday. The Prime Minister slammed Congress on the matter of security, claiming that the party has a “history of appeasement of terrorists.”

He said that, in contrast to the Congress, which left Karnataka “at the mercy of terrorists,” the Bharatiya Janata Party had “broken the back” of terror and appeasement. Referring to the 2008 Batla House encounter, in which two terrorists were gunned down by a police team in their rented address in Delhi’s Jamia Nagar, the Prime Minister made an apparent dig at then-Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, saying she had “teary eyes” after learning of the terrorists’ deaths.

“Congress has a history of appeasement of terror and terrorists. When the Batla House encounter took place in Delhi, then the biggest leader of Congress had teary eyes after getting the news of the terrorists” killings. When surgical strike and air strike happened, Congress questioned the capability of the forces of the country.

“You have seen in Karnataka how Congress has promoted terror. Congress had left Karnataka at the mercy of terrorists. It is the BJP which has broken the back of terror and has stopped the game of appeasement,” the prime minister said.

PM Modi also “warned” the people of Karnataka against the Congress and JDS, which are running in separate elections, and claimed that both parties are united by “their heart and deed.”

“I want to caution you. The people of Karnataka have to beware of both Congress and JDS. They are two separate parties only to show, but they are one by their heart and deed. Both are dynastic, both promote corruption, and both do divisive politics to divide society. The development of Karnataka is not the priority of both parties,” he said.

Karnataka Assembly elections will be held on May 10, with results announced on May 13.