“In the past six decades, what has been seen here is that every five years governance changes between the Congress and Communists. For five years the Congress loots, and then for five years the Communists do the same, and it continues,” said Modi.
The prime minister arrived here by helicopter from Coimbatore around 3pm and was received by all the top state leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies.
Speaking in Hindi, Modi took along with him the massive crowd, which cheered each time he hit out at the rival fronts.
“I have come to Kerala many times before, but this sort of massive reception I am receiving for the first time. This shows the time has come for the BJP to emerge as the third force in the Kerala assembly,” Modi said.
The prime minister added that if the state had to be “rescued”, the BJP was the only answer and the party would “not bring disrepute to the name of Kerala”.
Modi used his speech to slam the ruling Oommen Chandy government over the solar scam and also on the mishandling of the investigation into the death of a Dalit law student.
“In Benares, solar energy is used to power daily life, but in Kerala, I am afraid of saying the word solar; as here the ministers make money from solar,” said Modi to loud applause from the crowd. He pointed out that the union government had worked very hard to evacuate Kerala nurses working in Iraq and Yemen during the crisis there.
“The government in Delhi and Minister Sushma Swaraj worked together to see that the nurses were brought back safely. But what’s happening in Kerala, it’s been more than a week since a poor Dalit student was raped and murdered, but till now no one has been arrested,” he observed.
Modi came down heavily on his party’s political adversaries in the state. He pointed out although Palakkad was often referred to as the district which supplies a lot of agricultural products to the state, agriculture here was in the doldrums.
“Both the Communists and the Congress opposed modernisation in agriculture, but the BJP stands for development and has got a vision for it,” Modi said.
The prime minister also claimed that he and his government always held Kerala in high esteem and that was seen when they nominated actor Suresh Gopi to the Rajya Sabha.
Winding up his speech, Modi called upon the people of Kerala to vote for change and elect the National Democratic Alliance “because a change is the need of the hour in Kerala”.
After his speech he returned to Tamil Nadu. The prime minister returns next week when he speaks at five election rallies spread over two days.
Chopper diplomacy
The BJP will be ferrying Vellapally Natesan, the founder of Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), in a helicopter during the Kerala election campaign, a move that underlines the importance it assigns to its coalition partner. The chopper, arranged by the BJP for facilitating Natesan’s election rallies, arrived in Alappuzha yesterday morning, said a party source. A leader of the Ezhava community which constitutes the majority of Kerala’s Hindu population, Natesan is considered a vital cog in the BJP’s electoral strategy.
Related Story
