Carrying out a direct attack against the Congress and its president Sonia Gandhi over the AgustaWestland helicopter deal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday stated that everyone knew the persons who had relations in Italy and that the country wanted to know who had made money in the deal.
Addressing a BJP-NDA election rally in the Kerala capital, Thiruvananthapuram, late Sunday evening, the Prime Minister said that his Government had never revealed any Indian leader's name in connection with the chopper gate. Modi's attack against Sonia came just a day before she was scheduled to address Congress poll rallies in Kerala.
"Madam Soniaji! You are this bold! You and Congress leaders are making statements that false allegations are being leveled against you by Modi. Had Modi or the Modi Government ever taken the name of the Congress in connection with the helicopter deal in the last two yearsIJ" the Prime Minister asked.
"Nobody in India has ever taken any names. Everything came from Italy," Modi said, adding "Those who had given the money had been sent to jail. Now, when would the turn of those who had taken the money comeIJ" He taunted Congress leaders saying "they are going nervous after hearing the sound of the chopper. Now they are complaining about threat to democracy."
Giving a metaphorical warning to the Congress that those who were sleeping by the day would have to wake up in the night, the Prime Minister said, "This country needs know who had made money in the helicopter deal... We have never taken the name of any Congress leader in the past two years in connection with the issue."
Speaking at the third BJP-NDA election rally on Sunday on the second leg of his campaign tour of Kerala, Modi said the Congress leaders in Kerala were no better than their colleagues in Delhi as far as corruption was concerned. The Prime Minister had started election campaign in Kerala with a BJP rally in Palakkad on Friday.
"Those in Delhi had been making money from coal scam and the scam related to 2-G, 3-G - I don't know how many Gs. They ate the money made from the dark coal. But those here are making money from the sun," Modi said referring to the infamous solar scam in which Chief Minister Oommen Chandy was accused of involvement.
The Prime Minister's one-hour speech at Thiruvananthapuram, where tens of thousands of BJP workers and sympathizers had gathered to listen to him, revolved around the need for voting for the BJP-NDA in order to get Kerala moving out of the stagnancy into which it had fallen under the alternating rules of the Congress-led UDF and CPI(M)-headed lDF.
Modi cited the examples of how public debt of the State had risen to Rs 1.59 lakh crore, how 125 public sector units had been pushed into the red and how Kerala's unemployment rate was three times bigger than the national average under the rules of UDF and lDF which, according to him, had entered into a contract to loot Kerala.
'It was a painful sight to see the photograph of a small tribal child rummaging through a waste dump to find some food at the Marxist stronghold of Peravoor recently. Kerala is producing only 13 percent of the food crops it needs. It is buying 70 percent of the power it consumes from outside," he pointed out.
"All this happened because of the left-Right, left-Right standstill parade here. Kerala has lost 70 long years in this way. liberation from this is possible only through the BJP-NDA. Therefore this coming election is not for deciding who is to win or who is to rule. It is to change the future of this State," the Prime Minister said.
Earlier, in a rally at Edathwa in Kuttanad, the Rice Bowl of Kerala in Alappuzha district, the second of his campaign programmes on Sunday, Modi had unleashed a scathing attack against those who ruled the State so far by referring to the acute shortage of drinking water in the region. In his first rally of the day at Kasaragod, he had spoken at length about the alleged adjustment politics between the Congress and the left.
"Kerala is surrounded by water but still there is no drinking water here. It is a shame that those who had ruled this State for the past 70 years have not been able to solve even the very basic problem of drinking water," Modi said in Kuttanad, asking whether those who had been utter failure on this front should get elected.