Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a rare slip of the tongue, said that “one lakh fake voter IDs” were found in Karnataka. Addressing a poll rally in Belagavi on Wednesday, he said that “one lakh EPICs” were found in a constituency of four lakh voters. However, on Tuesday night, Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar had already clarified that the number of such cards were 9,745. He also clarified that the cards were genuine.
Mr. Modi asked BJP workers to be vigilant. “The Congress is trying various tricks as it knows it is losing. It will have spread such fake IDs across the State. It is trying to repeat such tricks in 40-50 constituencies. You should be vigilant and not allow such wrong things to happen,” he said.
Throughout his 45-minute speech at the District Stadium in KLE’s educational complex, Mr. Modi accused the Congress of corruption, inefficiency and of using dirty tricks before elections.
‘No achievements’
“All Congress leaders, the ‘Naamdar’ from New Delhi and the local ones such as Siddaramaiah, are not speaking of their work. They are only talking about ‘Modi’. I can understand when people raise the slogan ‘Modi, Modi’ at BJP rallies. But I don’t understand why it should appear in Congress rallies. That is because the Congress is losing and it has no achievements to show,” he said. “The Congress has not only reduced the size of its campaigns but has also started terming its rallies as ‘small meetings’,” he said.
“The Congress is on a ‘do or die’ campaign. It is using all kinds of dirty tricks. It is spreading all kinds of wrong and false messages on social media. Its leaders send messages such as ‘this leader quit this party and defected to that party’. Who will verify them? People will simply believe them. You should not fall into that trap. You should be vigilant,” he said. “You should go door-to-door and meet voters and speak to them. You should counter the wrong campaigns by the Congress,” he said.
“Mr. Siddaramaiah escaped from the back door and went to Badami and pleaded with the people to save him. But even Badami will not save him. The Congress will not win, especially after what happened yesterday. During a raid on the resort where the Chief Minister was staying, Income Tax officers found lakhs of rupees and documents containing mentions about payouts of crores of rupees,” he said.
‘Sleepy’ government
He described Belagavi as the second capital of Karnataka and accused the “sleepy” government of Karnataka for not spending money released under the Smart City project.
“I am using technology to review all pending projects and fast tracking them. I have found old projects worth ₹ 10 lakh crore. I found over 1,500 projects in the Railway Department alone. No Prime Minister has done this before,’’ he said.
“We are for technology that provides speed, increases scale and improves skills. But the Congress leaders have 18th century mentality. They are scaring people away from technology. They are provoking them by saying Modi is stealing your data using Aadhaar and he is manipulating EVMs. When the BJP wins in Karnataka on May 15, they will say there is something wrong with EVMs,” he said.
Letters
“Everyday, I pick around 10-15 letters received at my office at random and read them. I found that a woman from rural Tamil Nadu had sold two tea flasks to the Prime Minister’s Office using (gem.gov.in), a government website set up for public procurement. The poorest person can sell items on this website to the government and there is no need for inviting tenders,” he said and added, “Umaang, a mobile App, helps citizens avail of over 200 services.’’
He said that the subsidised air travel scheme UDAAN would be extended to small towns and Belagavi would be included in the list. Belagavi has five rivers, but is still dry.
“Under the Prime Minister Sinchai Scheme, we will take up works like desilting of tanks, rainwater harvesting and micro and major irrigation projects,” he said.
Mr. Modi stopped a few times to read out points from a paper about Kannada sayings, from figures about the achievements of the Union government and some schemes started by B.S. Yeddyurappa.
He started by greeting the people and recalling warriors Kittur Channamma and Belavadi Mallamma in Kannada. He said that he was happy to come to the land of harmony. He also ended the speech in Kannada, by raising slogans of “Change the Government, Bring the BJP to power”.
Candidates of 10 constituencies in Belagavi Lok Sabha region were present, along with Rajya Sabha member Prabhakar Kore and MP Suresh Angadi. Region in-charge Eeranna Kadadi spoke.
