Agency
SANTEMARANAHALLI/UDUPI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday assailed the Congress government in Karnataka for initiating the culture of “ease of doing murder”, as he launched the second leg of his campaign blitz in the state for the Assembly elections.
He also accused the successive Congress governments at the Centre of allowing a handful of people to “loot” banks while denying loans to poor.
The prime minister unleashed an all out attack on Congress president Rahul Gandhi and dared him “to speak in any language” for 15 minutes about the achievements of Karnataka’s Siddaramaiah government without referring to a piece of paper.
“I dare the Congress president to speak in Hindi, English or the mother tongue of his mother to deliver a speech in Karnataka for 15 minutes, without reading out from a piece of paper, on the achievements of the party government…
people of Karnataka will draw their own conclusion,” he told an election rally at Santemaranahalli in Chamaraja district.
Modi was responding to Rahul Gandhi’s dare to him to allow him to speak for 15 minutes in Parliament on various issues, including corruption, and that the prime minister will not be able to sit for 15 minutes.
“His speaking for 15 minutes will itself is a big thing. And when I hear that I would not be able to sit, I think…wow, what a scene it is? Congress president, Sir, we cannot sit before you. You are ‘naamdar’ (famous), while I am ‘kaamdar’ (ordinary worker). We have no status to sit in front of you,” he said.
While slamming Gandhi, he asked him also to pronounce the name of Visveswaraya five times, apparently taking a swipe at the Congress leader who struggled to pronounce the legendary engineer-scholar’s name at a public rally whose video had gone viral.
Modi claimed over two dozen BJP workers were killed under the Congress government in Karnataka in political violence.
“What was their crime? It was that they were opposed to your views, they raised their voice for the people of Karnataka.
“We want to encourage the ease of doing business, they (the Congress) have initiated the culture of ease of doing murder,” he told another election rally in Udupi. He asked the audience whether
