Continuing to target the Nehru-Gandhi family, BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi here today said poverty remained the theme of the speeches through its four generations starting from Jawaharlal Nehru but "nothing changed" on the ground.
"I request the political pundits to get the speeches of first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi and also of Sonia and Rahul and I bet that you will find that 80 out of 100 things they speak about poverty have remained the same," Modi told an election rally.
"The four generations of these (two) families have talked about poverty all the time and even today they are doing the same thing, which proves that they are unsuccessful and won't be able to run the country."
He referred to "Shehzade's" (Rahul's) statement about poverty being a state of mind and said it was a "joke" on the poor.
UPA chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Modi said, had recently promised to provide 35 kg of wheat free to the poor. "I challenge her to implement this promise in Congress-ruled Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh," he said.
Modi blamed the Congress-led UPA government for border issues and claimed there is no coordination between the Defence Minister and the Army. "When Pakistani forces shot our soldiers, the Minister said it was an act of terrorists but the Indian Army stated it was an act of Pakistan's Army", he said.
Modi also repeated the allegation that Congress was creating hurdles in the development of BJP-ruled states and cited the example of Dahod (Gujarat)-Indore rail line project whose foundation stone was laid by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself but even the project map was yet to be prepared.
Highlighting the progress made by Madhya Pradesh under the leadership of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in agriculture, power and tourism development, Modi said Chouhan had taken the state out of BIMARU bracket.
