Narendra Modi kickstarts poll campaign in
Gujarat
Tuesday September 11, 2012 06:06:20 PM,
IANS
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Ahmedabad: Gujarat
Chief Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday kicked off his Bharatiya
Janata Party's campaign for the assembly polls in December,
challenging the Congress to battle it on the issue of development
and not by using the CBI to target him.
Modi, who is serving his third term, started his campaign with a
rally at the temple town of Bahucharaji in north Gujarat's Mehsana
district and later launched the first of a series of yatras that
will take him to various parts of the state.
Addressing the rally, Modi said: "We need to awaken with our
dreams and move forward. Gujarat wants peace, prosperity."
Attacking the Congress, Modi said: "Leaders of the Congress party
have declared that they will oppose me wherever I will go. This
country is a democracy and it is election time. Have they lost
patience that they can't hear someone?"
In a thinly veiled threat, he added, "Do you want Sonia Gandhi and
Manmohan Singh to be opposed when they come to Gujarat (for
campaigning)?"
"Why practice the politics of opposition? I have the right to
express my thoughts, you (Congress) also have the right do so, my
government can even provide you with all the help that you need
for the same," Modi said.
Modi also accused the Congress party of misusing constitutional
bodies and alleged that the CBI was hand-in-glove with the
Congress and was being used to target him.
"They have abused me, called me names. The Congress is not
fighting alone in Gujarat, Congress will fight with the CBI, new
SITs are set up to corner Modi. Come, let's fight over
development, I don't want to fight over lies," he added.
BJP national leaders Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh and many top
functionaries of the Gujarat BJP were present on the occasion.
Modi's yatra, the first of the campaign, officially called the
'Vivekananda Yuva Vikas Yatra' began on a day when spiritual
leader Swami Vivekananda made his historic speech at the Chicago
Conference of World Religions, 119 years ago in 1893. The yatra
will cover all 182 assembly constituencies.
Bahucharaji has been chosen as the starting point of the yatra as
Maruti will construct its new car plant near the temple town.
Modi's yatra will travel through various places in north Gujarat,
including Modhera, Chanhasma, Dhinoj, Jotana, Kadi and Thol. It
will conclude at Sanand near Ahmedabad, where the Tata Nano plant
is located.
He will use the same "rath" that veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani
used for his anti-corruption 'Jan Chetna Yatra' in 2011.
The BJP has 121 members in the 182-member assembly and the
Congress 55. The Nationalist Congress Party has three members and
the Janata Dal-United two, while there are two independents.
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Picture of the Day |
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President
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