Modi keeps up attack on Oppn, says Rajasthan not safe for ‘girls to teachers’, ‘our festivals’

To counter the Opposition’s demand that Modi speak inside the House on Manipur, after a video emerged of tribal women being sexually assaulted in the state, the BJP has been raising crimes against women in states such as Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal.

In his speech, the PM said: “What is happening with daughters of this land fills one with rage. From small girls to teachers, they are not safe here. And instead of taking action, Congress leaders accuse the victims of telling lies… Rajasthan is a land of the brave and the courageous. They don’t plead, these are people who roar. And hence, all across there is only one roar, every Rajasthani has only one resolve: Behen, betiyon par atyachar, nahin sahega Rajasthan.”

The PM then employed the same slogan when it came to crimes against Dalits, debt-ridden farmers, law and order, paper leaks and corruption in the state, and went on to mention the “red diary” allegedly containing incriminating details against Congress Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

“The Congress means loot ki dukaan, jhoot ka bazaar (a shop of loot in a market of lies). And the latest product of this loot ki dukaan is the ‘red diary’,” he said, adding that the backlash over it will reduce the Congress to a zero in the coming elections. He also took potshots at the divide in the Congress unit in the state.

Rajendra Singh Gudha, who was sacked by Gehlot as minister soon after he raised “atrocities against women” in the state while speaking in the Assembly, has claimed the existence of such a diary containing records of “misdeeds” by the Gehlot government. Gudha claims to have retrieved it from the residence of Gehlot’s aide Dharmendra Rathore, at Gehlot’s insistence, while Income Tax raids were on at Rathore’s properties during the 2020 revolt against the Gehlot government.

Claiming deteriorating law and order situation in the state, Modi said there were “news of gang wars every other day” and added: “Threat looms over our festivals. No one knows when stones will be pelted, bullets start firing, or a curfew imposed.”

The PM also attacked the Gehlot government over the leak of exam papers related to government jobs, claiming that the accused had links to the ruling party. On the back foot over the issue, the Gehlot government recently brought in a Bill that provides for life term to paper leak accused.

With the Gehlot government counting big on its welfare schemes, especially minimum guaranteed income, Modi listed the different achievements of the Central government, citing pucca homes, free ration and vaccines to crores, free treatment in hospitals up to Rs 5 lakh, affordable medicine through Jan Aushadhi Kendras, as well as teaching in the mother tongue.

On the Opposition coming together under the acronym INDIA, Modi repeated that the Congress is “the biggest directionless party”, and called the name a “trick”, such as deployed by companies that earn a bad name. “The Congress and its jamaat of supporters are imitating such fraud companies. They have changed their name from UPA to INDIA so that the people don’t remember the misdeeds of the UPA… so that they can hide their sin of kneeling before terrorism, betrayal of debt-ridden farmers, treachery with the poor… They once gave the slogan Indira (Gandhi) is India, India is Indira, and the people uprooted them. In their pride, they have committed the same sin. They are saying UPA is INDIA, INDIA is UPA. The people will do the same to them again,” the PM said.

Modi then mentioned that India was also in the name of “the enemies of the country”, and that East India Company and Students’ Islamic Movement of India also used it “while seeking to hurt the nation”.

“Those who embrace the tukde-tukde gang, divide Bharat on the basis of language, and form relations with other nations on the basis of their (domestic) vote bank; for them, their vote bank is most important for them, not the interest of the country,” he said.

Modi said the BJP government at the Centre had given more to Rajasthan in its nine years than the preceding UPA government at the Centre gave it in 10 years.

“Ever since a Congress government was formed here, only obstacles have been created in the path to development,” Modi added, going on to give the example of the Jal Jeevan Mission under which new water connections have been given to over 9 crore families. While several states have completed all of their work, in Rajasthan, the Congress government “wants to keep people thirsty”, he said.

Addressing an event related to his government’s gas cylinder subsidy scheme in Jaipur, Gehlot got back at Modi, saying that the “red diary” was entirely fictitious. “I heard the PM’s speech in Sikar about a red diary. The PM’s post has dignity. They have the IT, ED, CBI, which they are misusing. Can they not get information about this diary?” he said.

Gehlot added that the BJP was “panicking” and told the PM to talk about “the real issues”, such as the price of “red gas cylinders” and “red tomatoes”, and not about a fictitious “red diary”.