Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were on Sunday the main targets of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, who said here that "two pradhans" ruled the country.
Giving a call for "Congress Mukt Bharat", the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime minister in waiting and chairman of the BJP's Lok Sabha election campaign committee asked people to oust the "autocratic" Congress-led government.
"Two pradhans (prime ministers) rule the country; I don't know which one is real. Both have ruined the country. Congress ek nirankush party hai (the Congress is an autocratic party)," Modi said, in a clear reference to the PM and the UPA chairperson. Modi was alluding to the early 1950s' slogan of Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee when the Praja Parishad supported by him had led an agitation demanding: "Ek vidhan, ek nishan aur ek pradhan (one constitution, one flag and one prime minister)" as opposed to the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and different law in that state.
Pitching the issue of twin power centres in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, Modi projected himself one and only leader of the BJP, who will be at the helm of affairs, if the Congress is ousted from power in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. "The future of the people of this country is not secure in the hands of the Congress. I want to ask the PM how he runs the country," Modi said during the BJP's Sankalp Rally on the 60th death anniversary of Syama Prasad Mookerjee.
{{/usCountry}}Pitching the issue of twin power centres in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, Modi projected himself one and only leader of the BJP, who will be at the helm of affairs, if the Congress is ousted from power in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. "The future of the people of this country is not secure in the hands of the Congress. I want to ask the PM how he runs the country," Modi said during the BJP's Sankalp Rally on the 60th death anniversary of Syama Prasad Mookerjee.
{{/usCountry}}Modi claimed the Centre had been caught napping when the Pakistan army had beheaded two Indian soldiers close to the border in Kashmir. "I want to ask the PM what he did to save Sarabjit Singh, Indian prisoner who was murdered in a jail across the border," he said.
Referring to the killing of two Indian fishermen by the Italian navy, the BJP leader said the government had moved only on the Supreme Court directions. "To this day, the government has failed to bring before the law those responsible for the Purulia arms dropping," he said.
For more details, read hindustantimes