Karnataka elections: PM Narendra Modi hits back at Congress, raises National Herald case

Playing the nationalism card, he attacked the Congress, saying it had raised “questions on the surgical strike” and the valour of the country’s soldiers.

“Yeddyurappa has faced the court but you continue to level baseless and false allegations against him… Today I want to ask the leaders of the Congress. I don’t want to breach the decorum. But when you are breaking the decorum of public life, tell me then, if the Congress has the guts to tell me, aren’t the Congress leader-mother and her son out on bail?”

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“Why was there an FIR against you? What is the allegation against the mother and the son… why did you have to take bail from the court?… The Congress leader-mother and her son face charges of involvement in a Rs 5000 crore scam. And that is why they are out on bail,” he said. “Jis party ke mukhiya jamanat par chal rahe hain, wo hame sawaal puch rahe hain.”

He said the BJP follows the decorum in public life, but that does not “give you a right to level false allegations… there are some boundaries in public life. We know you are naamdaar (a dynast) but that does not mean you can level any allegation against the poor of the country”.

Modi also attacked Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, saying he is immersed in superstition. He said he had read in newspapers that the chief minister changed his car after a crow sat on it. “The day that crow sat, it was decided that your shop will shut. People’s mind don’t change by changing vehicles. You got scared because of crow and since then you are roaming around with a lemon in your pocket.”

Modi spoke without simultaneous translation in Kannada as people cheered and chanted his name when local MP Prahlad Joshi started translating at the beginning of his speech. The Prime Minister smiled and said: “Your love and blessing, that is the country’s strength.” He said “in every corner of the country, wherever the people have got a chance, they have punished the Congress. And there is no possibility of the Congress saving itself in any part of Karnataka”.

The Prime Minister also addressed rallies at Chitradurga, Raichur and Jamkhandi, where he accused the Congress of “distorting history” as part of a conspiracy to divide society. At Chitradurga, Modi flayed the Congress government for celebrating “jayantis of sultans” (birth anniversaries of Muslim rulers) for the sake of “vote bank politics”, according to a PTI report. He was apparently referring to the state government’s decision of celebrating “Tipu Jayanti” every year on November 10.

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Referring to corruption charges against a minister without naming him, he said: “The Congress is a party that neither has dil (heart) nor is it pro-Dalit. It is a deal party.”

In Jamkhandi, he said it has been a year since Ram Nath Kovind became President, but “Madam Sonia ji did not get time to pay a courtesy call on him”. “The President might be a Dalit, but the office was an institution and the Congress… did not have that much of wisdom (to visit him). Today they are speaking about Dalits,” the PTI quoted him as saying.