In a blistering attack on NCP chief Sharad Pawar, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi said on Sunday that despite being the Union Agriculture Minister, Pawar could not prevent hundreds of Vidarbha farmers from committing suicide.

“Despite Union Home Minsiter (Pawar) being from your State, he could not prevent farmers from committing suicide. What is more unfortunate is that Pawar had time for speaking on issues of cricket day in day out. But, he had not time to bother about the suicides by farmers in his own state,” Modi said, while addressing a huge rally at Amravati in Vidarbha region.

Campaigning for Shiv Sena candidate Anand Adsul in Amravati, Modi invoked lal Bahadur Shashtri’s slogan to come down heavily on the Congress-led UPA for neglecting both soldiers and farmers during its regime. “lal Bahadur Shastry had come up a Jai Jawan Jai Kisan slogan. But, more number of farmers have committed suicide the number of soldiers killed on the battle field and the ones fell to the bullets of terrorists,” he said, adding that late Shasty’s slogan had become “Mar Jawan, Mar Kisan” under the Congress-led UPA regime.      

Modi, who had in the past faced criticism from various quarters for failing to take name of late Bal Thackeray during his rally in Mumbai, invoked the name of late Sena chief in his Amravati speech. “Today, Balasaheb is not our midst. Is it not our responsibility to pay debt to late ThackerayIJ True homage to late Thackeray is to ensure that not even a single Congress or NCP candidate is elected in the lS polls. 

Exhorting the people to defeat the Congress in the polls, Modi said: “While the slogan that had been coined during the first war of Indian Independence waged in 1857 was British-free India, the slogan of 2014 should be Congress-free India…..message of 2014 is lotus and Modi”.

Modi also slammed the Congress-led DF Government for its recent initiative to introduce local Body tax (lBT) in the State. “The lBT is nothing but looto Baato Tax. If anything lBT has become to loot and ruin the trading community in Maharashtra,” he said.