The BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, on Tuesday ridiculed the initiative of a group of parties to form a non-Congress, non-BJP third alternative ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, saying such an idea comes up only when the Congress appears to be in danger.
Addressing a mammoth rally here, Mr. Modi said States under the rule of parties trying to forge a third alternative were the least developed.
He said several States in the eastern region were ruled by such parties, which were responsible for all backwardness. “Uttar Pradesh is ruled by either the Samajwadi Party or the Bahujan Samaj Party; Odisha can be an example, and West Bengal had been destroyed by Communists,” he said.
Mr. Modi said the western States were more developed because most of them had been under BJP rule. For the eastern region to be brought on a par with them, the time had come to teach a lesson to those who advocated the third alternative.
The third alternative comprised 11 parties, leaders of which posed for photographs in New Delhi but had no guts to show their faces in their own States. Of these parties, nine had been continuously supporting the Congress, and when elections came, they donned the mask of the third alternative, Mr. Modi said.
“Parties that help Congress should not be made to win elections,” he said. They mislead people and their only aim is to save the Congress.
“As long as we don’t identify these parties which help Congress, we cannot clean up politics. The 2014 election is not about electing Members of Parliament, but cleaning up Indian politics,” he said.
Mr. Modi launched a scathing attack on the Naveen Patnaik government, blaming it for poverty in Odisha.
He said the BJP’s development model was appropriate for people’s welfare. He called upon political pundits and economists to scrutinise the development models being practised by all parties.
“People have seen the Congress model of development in independent India. They have seen the Communist model. They have also seen the model of dynastic rule and also the model of regional parties. People have seen the BJP’s model. I invite experts to study the development models in the States ruled by the BJP,” he said, maintaining that, “I can say with conviction that the BJP model is appropriate for people’s welfare.”
