Congress Promoted \'Darbar\' Attendees; Money Saved Funded Free Ration Scheme: Modi

BHOPAL: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday launched a diatribe against Congress saying that the party promoted only the sycophants.

Addressing a public meeting in Sidhi in Madhya Pradesh, Mr Modi said that Congress never promoted the able leaders in the party. That is why the party has been losing its ground across the country.

“Those who attended the ‘darbar’ (the centralised power) have only been promoted in Congress. The party overlooked many able leaders belonging to scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and other categories”, he said.

Mr Modi said that that is why the grand old party has been losing its base across the country steadily and its influence has now been confined to very few states.

He said that Congress has a habit of misguiding people and making false promises. The party has taken the women, dalits and underprivileged for granted in the past six decades by making all kinds of false promises to them.

He said that the Congress had promised to waive farm loans in Madhya Pradesh within ten days of coming to power in the state in 2018. But, the party failed to fulfil its promise after forming the government in the state.

But, BJP always delivered what it promised, he said.

The PM said that under the ‘Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Yojana’, an amount of Rs 26,000 crore was deposited in the bank accounts of the farmers.

There was no leakage of money given under the scheme since the corruption was stopped, he said.

He said that when Congress was in power for ten years (2004-2014) many scams had taken birth. But, BJP after coming to power at the Centre in 2014 stopped all those scams and saved a lot of money and utilised it to provide free ration to around 80 crore people during the Covid-19 period.

Mr Modi said that Congress never forgot to abuse him and added that the grand old party even opposed the candidature of country’s first tribal woman president Draupadi Murmu.

“Congress never forgets to abuse me daily. The party even opposed the election of the country's first tribal woman as president since it treated tribals as vote banks and was not interested in their welfare”, he said.

He described him as ‘sevak’ and said that he worked with dedication for the development of the country in the last ten years.

“Your sevak, Modi has worked with full dedication in the government that we have run for almost ten years. During the period, corruption stopped, the poor and the middle class have saved money because of the Centre’s policies and programmes”, he said.

“Corruptions worth lakhs of crore rupees have stopped during my government and the money was utilised for providing free ration to around 80 crore people in the country”, he said.

Mr Modi said that the Centre has decided to extend the free ration scheme by another five years, demonstrating his commitment to ensure that no one in the country starved.

The tenure of the scheme is ending in December this year.

Earlier in the day, addressing a public meeting in Darima under Surajpur assembly constituency in Chhattisgarh, Mr Modi said that the state was created by BJP (during Atal Behari Vajpayee government in 2000) and the BJP alone could ensure the development and growth of the state.

Surajpur assembly constituency is scheduled to go to polls along with 69 other seats in Chhattisgarh in the second and final phase polling in the state on November 17.

Twenty assembly constituencies in the state went to polls on Tuesday.

Mr Modi said that the Congress government in Chhattisgarh indulged in corruption only.

The state Congress government even did not spare ‘Mahadev’, he said while referring to the alleged online betting Mahadev App scam surfaced recently.

He said that the scam is being discussed in the entire country today.

Many children have fallen victim to the scam, he added.

He also accused the state Congress government of taking no action to check trafficking of tribal girls in Surguja region in the state.

He said that Congress has done nothing for the tribals whereas BJP has given top priority for their welfare.