Breaking an unwritten code, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Monday held a rally here in the Gandhi family pocket-borough, attacking “family” politics but said he has not come for “ >revenge ” but for “change” in this backward region.
Campaigning for actor-turned-politician and BJP candidate >Smriti Irani contesting against Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, he rejected Mr. Gandhi’s charge that he practises “politics of anger.”
“I have not come here for revenge. I have come here for bringing about a change in this constituency which has been neglected by the Gandhi family despite representing it for 40 years. You just invoke family relations with the people here but do nothing for its development,” Mr. Modi said.
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Concluding his speech minutes before the campaign ended in the constituency, which will witness polling on May 7, he said he has not come here to “trouble Rahul Gandhi. He is already a troubled soul.”
Describing Ms. Irani as his “younger sister” and his “representative”, he said, “Time has come to snap the relationship between the family and the constituency. People here have been cheated.”
Attacking both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, he said, “You have committed sins. For 40 years, you have cheated three generations whose lives have been destroyed and their dreams shattered... I have come here to turn your dreams as mine, to convert your pain into mine.”
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Mr. Modi’s campaign in Mr. Rahul Gandhi’s constituency assumes significance as no top leader usually undertakes electioneering in the constituency of top rivals.