Mumbai, April 21 (IANS) BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi Monday made an impassioned plea to the youth of the country to vote for the party “to secure their future”.
Addressing a mammoth rally of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said the youths – aged between 18-28 – face crucial choices on all fronts in their young age.
“This is the age when they decide their entire future and plan out their lives. They must get a strong government which works in their interest. I appeal to all youths to go out and vote for a strong government,” Modi said.
Lashing out at the Congress, Modi said it had promised to provide 10 crore jobs before the 2009 polls, but later betrayed the people of the country.
“In the six years of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government at the centre, the NDA provided 6.5 crore new jobs,” Modi said.
He said whenever he raised issues of the youths, jobs for unemployed, women’s security or anything concerning the country, the Congress turned around and asked: “But what about secularism?”
Modi accused the UPA of raising the secularism issue as it has nothing else to discuss. “Nobody is ready or interested in listening to them anymore.”
Referring to issues of the poor, Modi said Rahul Gandhi becomes a “tourist” whenever the country goes to the polls.
“Whenever elections come, they speak of the poor. Rahul, who was born with a silver spoon, goes to visit homes of the poor to see how they live and survive, and even eats up their food. How will they help the poor?” Modi said in a sarcastic tone.
He also accused Rahul Gandhi of speaking about the poor only for enjoyment, without bothering to solve their problems.
He said South Korea is a small country but it grabbed all opportunities to change and develop itself.
“It even hosted the Olympics. India cannot even think of doing that. By the manner in which it conducted the Olympics, it (Korea) was catapulted to a developed country status. But in india, a relatively smaller event like the Commonwealth Games was mired in corruption and gave India a bad image,” Modi said, referring to the CWG scam.
He said that under the UPA, India was even losing out on the world’s $3 trillion tourism.
“With daily incidents of rapes in the country and Delhi becoming the rape capital, tourism has taken a seriout hit. It has the potential to generate a lot of jobs and revenue for the country with minimal investments,” he added.
Modi warned that due to its arrogance, the Congress and its allies would be completely wiped out in many states, and in the remaining, it would fail to even cross the double-digit number of seats.
This was Modi’s second rally in Maharashtra Monday where the third and final phase of election for 19 Lok Sabha seats is scheduled April 24.
Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and Republican Party of India chief Ramdas Athavale were also present on the occasion.