At a massive rally in Mumbai on Sunday, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi practically unveiled the party’s campaign slogan for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls: Vote for India.
“During elections, the public is asked to vote for the party. I ask you to vote for the country, which is higher than the party. Vote for India. This new slogan should reach every corner of the country. Vote against corruption and price rise, vote for change,” said Mr. Modi at the party’s Mahagarjana rally in Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla complex.
In a speech that lasted almost an hour, Mr. Modi launched a blistering attack on the Congress party at the Centre as well as the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra.
Mr. Modi ridiculed Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for “sermonising” about corruption in his recent address to Corporate India, even as the Congress-led government here rejected the report of the Adarsh Commission of Inquiry. “This leader from Delhi makes an innocent face and talks about corruption. It shows this party says one thing and does another. How do they have the gall to talk about corruption when they are steeped in it,” he asked.
A special city
He said Mumbai was a special city because the Quit India movement had been launched from the August Kranti Maidan here. “From this very soil, there should be the demand to free the country from the Congress.” “During the freedom struggle we asked for Swarajya as a birth-right. Today you should ask for good governance as a birth-right,” he said.