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Addressing a rally in poll-bound Chhattisgarh, Gujarat Chief minister Narendra Modi came down heavily on the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government alleging that the Congress party's arrogance is at all-time high.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) election campaign committee chief praised the governance efforts undertaken by BJP chief ministers, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Raman Singh.
Modi also used the occasion to target the Centre over the dismal economic scene and the decline in the value of the rupee.
The Hindutva poster boy made a comparison between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his host Chief Minister Raman Singh saying there is a Singh in Chhattisgarh, there is a Singh in Delhi. Both are doctors. But the doctor in Chhattisgarh is a people's doctor while the one in Delhi is only a doctor of money, and the rupee is oscillating between life and death these days.
He went on to add that the common man is being affected by price rise and children are weeping but the UPA government is busy defining poverty.
The Gujarat CM also criticised the way the Congress party had handled the Telangana issue. He said that the Congress does not consider people as citizens but as mere vote-banks.
Modi lauded former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee under whose rule Chhattisgarh was formed.
"Whenever I think of Chhattisgarh, it reminds of me of Vajpayeeji's decision. When Chhattisgarh was formed, Madhya Pradesh was also distributing sweets. When Telangana was formed, curfew has been imposed. This is the Congress 'ki karya shehli'," said Modi.
Modi said even the Supreme Court of India has negative things to say about the UPA government.
"Raman Singh's initiative of giving food to the poor was praised by the apex court. The SC had backed the Chhattisgarh programme and asked the government to learn from the Chhattisgarh model," he added.
Meanwhile, Modi has played down his ambition to be the next Prime Minister of the country and said he would serve Gujarat till the end of 2017 as the people of the state had elected him for that office.
His remarks come at a time when the BJP high command remains undecided on the timing of announcing him as the party's prime ministerial candidate.
Last month, Modi had challenged the PM on August 15 - first saying that his address in Gujarat would draw as much attention as the PM's Red Fort speech, and then making a surprisingly political speech tearing into Singh.
