Congress Minister Tewari Compares Modi To Hitler And Claims He Can Only Attract apos;crowds But Not Votes apos;
Congress minister Tewari compares Modi to Hitler and claims he can only attract 'crowds but not votes' By
Published: 01:01 BST, 20 October 2013 | Updated: 02:07 BST, 20 October 2013
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Hard ball: The Congress's strategy to take on Modi through 'personal attacks' is almost similar to what BJP veteran L K Advani had practised in 2009 against Manmohan Singh
Personal attacks are becoming sharper in the political arena as the nation gears up for the 2014 general elections.
If the BJP leaders have taken potshots at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from time to time, it's the turn of the Congress to fire verbal volleys at the main Opposition party, particularly its poster-boy and PM nominee Narendra Modi.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari on Saturday compared Modi with German dictator Adolf Hitler.
"I heard a man who had PM ambitions, last month on TV talking about how he would have used centenary celebrations of cinema to further brand India. My thoughts went to a man who tried to use the Berlin Olympics to brand his country," he said at a public event in Mumbai.
Tewari's party colleague Renuka Chowdhury was not far behind in the slamming Modi.
Downplaying the NaMo wave having its "anticipated effect on next general elections results", https://telegra.ph/Rath-Yatra-Rituals-06-29 Chowdhury compared his rallies with circus shows and questioned his understanding of foreign affairs.
"Do not measure one's strength from one's obesity. Famous filmstar Raj Kumar had once said that a large crowd gathers and claps even when some circus comes to town," she told reporters in the Capital.
Echoing a similar tone on Modi rallies, Tewari said: "Modi could only get crowds, not votes. Crowds come for melas too."
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He said BJP's designs didn't work after the Babri Masjid demolition and won't work now.
The Congress seems to have a plan in hand to counter every statement the Gujarat chief minister makes in By Mail Today Bureau public.
Sample this statement of Tewari: "The temple is on BJP's agenda, yet their PM candidate pretends that toilets are more important."
The Congress's strategy to take on Modi through "personal attacks" is almost similar to what BJP veteran L K Advani had practised in 2009 against Manmohan Singh, who later returned for a second term as PM.
With virtually no scam in the first term, Singh was then seen as the face of middle class and a credible and gentle politician. In 2009, Advani's remarks against Singh worked for the UPA and boomeranged on the BJP as the urban middle class voted for Congress with Manmohan Singh in mind.
In fact, the Congress wave in Delhi in the last parliamentary elections where it swept the polls was nothing but Singh finding its foothold among the middle class voters.
Advani only triggered more trouble for the BJP then. It is to be seen yet if the Congress will go the BJP way in 2014.
Tewari had earlier slammed Modi for his comments against the CBI.
After Modi had said the probe agency will contest the next election on the Congress's behalf, Tewari taunted whether by CBI, Modi means 'Communal Bureau of Instigation'.
Modi is also drawing flak from the Congress on his comments against UPA's failure on foreign policy front.
Modi slams Rahul for his 'hypocrisy' on poverty
Piyush Srivastava
BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Saturday sought to project himself as a champion of the poor while launching a blistering attack on Rahul Gandhi and the Congress for their hypocrisy on the country's poverty.
"The shahzada of the Congress says 'poverty is a state of mind'. How can he know poverty when he was born with a golden spoon in his mouth? He goes to see the poor people and asks camerapersons to click them so that he can show it to the people of the world...But I was born poor. I saw poverty as a child. He shouldn't rub salt on our wounds," Modi told the gathering at the Vijay Shankhnaad rally.
Narendra Modi launched a blistering attack on Rahul Gandhi and the Congress for their hypocrisy on the country's poverty
The industrial city of Kanpur hosted the first of the nine proposed rallies which Modi will address in Uttar Pradesh that sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha.
"There is no space for education and health of the poor in the definition of poverty coined by the Congress. They don't know that the government is for the poor. The Congress is giving a food security bill in which you will sleep hungry every day.
"The quantity of food the Centre has resolved to give you will be equal to what a primary student gets in mid-day meal," he said.
The BJP leader alleged that the Congress has kept a large number of people hungry for decades.
"Now is the time to keep the Congress hungry by keeping it away from power.
India has missed the life that it used to have 60 years ago. The Congress has destroyed the dreams of the people," he said.
Modi also accused the ruling party of adopting the British policy of 'divide and rule' in the country.
"It is in the DNA and the blood of the Congress to follow the politics of division in the name of religion, caste and society.
Their 60 years of vote bank politics is creating hatred. But now we need to bury those who believe in such kind of politics," he asserted.
Reminding Kanpur's role in the First War of Independence in 1857, the BJP's prime ministerial candidate exhorted the people to fight for good governance.
"Another revolution must begin from Kanpur to remove the UPA and get suraaj (good governance)," he said.
BJP's big plans for Patna rally
Giridhar Jha
The BJP is leaving no stone unturned to make its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's upcoming Hunkar rally in Patna a huge success.
From bulk booking of trains and buses to ferry party supporters to organising rath yatras to drum up public support, the state BJP leaders have taken recourse to all means and resources at their disposal to draw people to the rally at Gandhi Maidan on October 27.
Narendra Modi (from left) with British Petroleum Group's chief executive Bob Dudley, Gujarat's energy minister Saurabh Patel and Reliance Industries CMD Mukesh Ambani at an event in Gandhinagar
The state BJP has so far booked 11 trains and about 1,900 buses to bring people to Patna on the rally day.
Party sources said the trains would be run from Bhagalpur, Purnia, Bagaha, Bettiah, Pirpainti, Naugachia, Samastipur, Kishanganj, Saharsa and Araria.
The party has also launched a rath yatra which will travel through 20 districts to mobilise support for the rally.
BJP leaders were also organising street meetings and going door to door to invite people to the rally.
They were also using social media to urge people to attend the mega event.
Former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi said the Hunkar rally will be the biggest in Bihar in the recent times.
"It will be even bigger than Lalu Prasad's Garib Raila which he had organised in the mid-1990s," he said.
Sushil said the people of Bihar had been rooting for the Gujarat chief minister everywhere.
"I have seen such popularity for any other leader," he said. "This will be amply manifested in the rally."
Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Assembly Nand Kishore Yadav said that elaborate arrangements of food and accommodations were being made for the convenient stay of the rallyists who would be staying at different places in Patna.
Yadav said Modi's rally would be a befitting reply to those who had been pursuing politics in the name of castes and communities.
"The next Lok Sabha polls will shatter the illusion of those leaders who are doing the politics of caste and community," he said.
Political observers believe that the BJP has a lot at stake in this rally since it will not only be its own show of strength but also determine the popularity of Modi in Nitish Kumar's stronghold.
Modi had last addressed a rally at the same venue in June 2010 during the party's national executive but had refrained from attacking Nitish at that time.
‘NaMo fan' Yeddy nown wants to join NDA
Taking the initial formal step to be part of the NDA, former Karnataka CM and Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) chief B SYeddyurappa on Saturday asked it to consider making his party an alliance partner of the BJP-led coalition while expressing his support to its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
In a letter to NDA chairman and BJP veteran leader L K Advani, with whom he shares an uneasy relationship, Yeddyurappa requested him to involve the KJP in all the deliberations of the NDA by inviting it to all the meetings.
B S Yeddyurappa (left) pictured with Narendra Modi (right)
Yeddyurappa's missive comes in the midst of his repeated public posture that the KJP would not merge with the BJP, which he quit in the sequel to the BJP central leadership's decision to remove him as the chief minister over the illegal mining issue.
The state BJP is divided on the re-entry of Yeddyurappa, whose outfit too, has differences of opinion on the merger of both parties.
In his letter, Yeddyurappa drew Advani's attention to the unanimous decision of the KJP's executive committee to support the NDA in its endeavour of making Modi the future PM.
The KJP had failed to make a mark of its own in the Assembly polls but played spoilsport to the chances of BJP, whose only government down south crumbled, leading to the resurrection of the Congress rule after a long hiatus.
