Addressing a large gathering on the banks of Ganga during his first visit to this ancient temple town after winning the Varanasi seat by a huge margin of 3.7 lakh votes, he said, "So far, the country has always been ruled either by the Congress or, except for the period under (Atal) Vajpayee's rule, by loose coalitions headed by people formerly associated with the Congress."
"The people of the country have given a tight slap to all those parties which are not with the NDA. Now all these parties may end up forming an alliance just to attain the status of a formally recognisable opposition," he said.
The main Opposition party must hold at least 1/10th of the total Lok Sabha seats. Congress suffered its worst electoral defeat bagging just 44 seats.
"This is a turning point in the country's history as for the first time the leadership is going to fall in the hands of a generation which was born in the post-Independence era," Modi said.