BJP-led NDA’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Sunday vowed to end the ‘poison-farming’ of vote-bank politics, which was based on the theory of divide-and-rule, if his party came to power in Delhi.
Inaugurating the Satabdi Mahansangamam organised by Dalit outfit Kerala Pulayar Maha Sabha (KPMS) in Kochi in memory of the 1913 Kayal Sammelanam of the Pulaya community, Modi said that there would be efforts to replace the Vish ki Kheti with Amrit ki Kheti to bring glory to Bharat Mata if his party came to power.
Modi began his speech with stiff protests against the boycott of the programme by Kochi City’s Congress Mayor Tony Chammini. “Mein aaj bhi untouchability ka shikar hota rahta hoon” (I am still a victim of untouchability), he said, However, this situation would change for the Dalits, backwards people and the downtrodden in the next 10 years, he said.
Recalling in Malayalam the historic Kayal Sammelanam of the Dalits held in 1913 on a platform built over hundreds of country boats on the Kochi backwaters because the upper class authorities would not allow it to take place on land, Modi promised to do everything in his capacity to ensure that no such situation existed anymore.
In an earnest effort to strike a chord with the over 1.5 lakh Dalits assembled at Kochi’s Marine Drive, Modi took a journey back into his childhood when he was a student from a backward community and when “my mother used to clean utensils and filled water in the neighbouring houses and I sold tea in train compartments.”
Attacking the Congress and its allies for doing nothing for the backward, Dalit and other downtrodden people of the country for the past six decades, Modi said, “The fortune for fulfilling all that work seems to have been bestowed upon me… The coming decade belongs to you, to all the downtrodden people,” he said.
Alleging that there had been an effort to establish that whatever that had happened in India for the past 60 years had been done by a single family, Modi said, “I haven’t done anything for my (personal) family so far. But if I am voted to power this year, I will do many things for my family, not the family to which I was born but my family of the downtrodden people.”
Modi also told the Dalits assembled at the Marine Drive that destiny seemed to have put on his shoulders the “pious” responsibility of building fitting memorials for social reformers Ayyankali and Sree Narayana Guru and of spreading their teachings beyond the borders of God’s own Country.
After landing in Kochi early Sunday afternoon, Modi held discussions with Metropolitans of Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, Thomas Mar Athanasius and Geevarghese Mar Yulios. After the meeting, the metropolitans said that they would happy to see “our friend Modi” as the Prime Minister of the country.
They also said that there were no evidences to suggest Modi’s involvement in the 2002 events in Gujarat. Before leaving Kochi for the BJP’s Mahasangamam at Thiruvananthapuram, Modi met noted jurist VR Krishna Iyer who had been liberal in showering praises on him for his development initiatives in Gujarat at his residence.