Narendra Modi on Thursday tore into the Congress manifesto, calling it a "bundle of lies" and unkept promises, and also accused the Nitish Kumar government of "nurturing and abetting" terrorism for "vote-bank" politics.
The BJP prime ministerial candidate, who addressed three rallies -- two in Bihar and one in Jharkhand -- also revived the "Jayanthi tax" barb aimed at former Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan to hit out at the UPA government over alleged corruption in giving clearance to power projects.
Chaos broke out at the venue of Modi's rally in Gaya shortly before he was due to address it prompting police to resort to a mild lathicharge to restore order. A section of the crowd broke the wooden barricades and also barged into the media enclosure while some threw bottles and chappals at the police. The rally, however, continued.
Ahead of Modi's rallies in Bihar, Maoists blew up two mobile towers exploding powerful bombs in two areas of Gaya district raising security concerns.
Modi appealed to Maoists to abjure violence and said it was his dream to see a pen or a plough in the hands of the youths in their ranks and not guns.
"Congress announced its manifesto yesterday which is a bundle of lies. They had announced the same promises in their 2004 and 2009 manifestoes," he said at his rallies.
"For any political party, a manifesto is equal to the Gita, the Bible, the Koran and should not be a document to hoodwink the people," he said, and accused Congress of not fulfilling its past promises like controlling price rise or ensuring a job to a member of each family.
Turning to the crowd at the Gumla rally, Modi said, "You (people) ask them (Congress) how many points (of the manifesto) they had implemented in the last five years? When did they implement them? And what was the output?
"If you ask these questions you can stop the tradition of announcing untrue manifestoes of political parties."
"I can assure you that corruption can be curbed. But a leader should have guts, a clean conscience and a clear policy," Modi said.
The Gujarat chief minister targeted his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar at the rallies in Sasaram and Gaya.
"Log mare to mare unko chinta thi apni kursi ki apne vote bank ki (let the people die he was more concerned for his chair and vote bank politics)," he said.
The holy city of Bodh Gaya, he said, was rocked by serial bomb blasts triggered by terrorists in July last year, but the state government did little to prevent it.
At the rally in Sasaram where outgoing Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar is the Congress candidate, Modi blamed the Centre and the Nitish government in Bihar for lack of progress in the state and said development will be fast tracked in the entire eastern region if BJP comes to power. He also accused Meira of doing nothing for development of Sasaram.
Image: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi present the party's manifesto in New Delhi. Photo courtesy: INC website
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