BJP Won’t Cross 200 Seats: Mallikarjun Kharge
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the Narendra Modi government is trying to destroy MGNREGA, the lifeline of the poor
On Friday, May 18, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that the BJP will not cross the 200-mark in the Lok Sabha while the opposition INDIA bloc will win over 300 seats. He also claimed that there was an undercurrent against the Narendra Modi regime.
Speaking at a rally at Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) ground, which was attended by allies Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Kharge also said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not paying attention to checking inflation and employment generation.
He alleged that Modi’s motto is to keep the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes backward and poor and not to give them reservation.
While speaking at the rally, Kejriwal said that Modi’s policy was to arrest his opponents if he can’t defeat them in polls.
Meanwhile, Uddhav Thackeray said that Modi will no longer be prime minister when votes are counted on June 4.
Speaking at the mega gathering that came ahead of the May 20 polling for the remaining 13 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, including six in Mumbai, Kharge said, “Modi will not cross 200 seats this time and INDI alliance will cross 300 seats. I have travelled to every state and there is an undercurrent. Modi is scared and speaking out of fear.”
Kharge said a prime minister should speak like a statesman and that he had laughed when PM Modi said if one has two buffaloes, the Congress will take away one — by imposing inheritance tax.
He vowed that the INDI alliance will protect the Constitution and said that it was due to his party’s efforts to preserve democracy that Modi became prime minister.
The Congress president dubbed Modi as a “leader of liars” and said that none of his promises — including creating two crore employment opportunities every year or doubling farmers’ incomes — were fulfilled.
Meanwhile, Uddhav Thackeray claimed that Modi holds a grudge against Maharashtra; he alleged that Modi wants to take the businesses and industry to Gujarat and make Mumbai “pauper”.
He said that the BJP has “developed stomach pain” (out of jealousy) that Muslims are backing Uddhav Thackeray and the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance in the state, and hence, the minority community is being labelled as infiltrators.
Touching upon the PM’s remarks that he does not do politics of Hindu-Muslim polarisation, Thackeray said Muslims were being labelled as traitors and infiltrators.
He said that when people talk about inflation and unemployment, Modi tries to present the bogey of ‘fear of Muslims’; the PM speaks about the danger from Pakistan but does not talk about China, he added.
Thackeray said that China has made incursions on the border but neither Modi nor home minister Amit Shah was ready to visit these places, adding that on the other hand, the entire army of the BJP has been unleashed to finish him in Maharashtra.
Meanwhile, Sharad Pawar said that those who were in power before Modi worked to ensure that parliamentary democracy was strengthened. This was the first election after independence where there is concern about how to save people’s fundamental rights and the Constitution.
Pawar alleged that power is being used to destroy those who take a stand against the PM. He said, “Maharashtra knows that (Shiv Sena founder and Uddhav’s late father) Balasaheb Thackeray helped you in distress, but you forgot that.”
