)
Making a strong pitch for his party led alliance in Tamil Nadu in the April 24 Lok Sabha polls, BJP leader Narendra Modi today said it has emerged as a 'viable alternative' to DMK and AIADMK which worked in a " shift system" once in five years only to "harass" each other.
"There is shift system in Tamil Nadu every five years where DMK and AIADMK come to power. They are busy harassing each other," he told an election rally here in western Tamil Nadu in support of NDA candidates.
An alternative front has now emerged in the state which wanted to serve the people and fulfill their requirements, the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate, on a two-day visit to the state, said in his second rally this week.
"This is a viable alternative and in future also it will continue. So I request people of Tamil Nadu to give a thumping majority to this alliance and give a strong government in Delhi," he urged the electorate.
He also took a dig at ruling AIADMK, facing flak over power shortage, saying electricity supply was imperative for economic growth and asked the gathering if it was available in the state.
However, he singled out Congress for the coal shortage in the country, saying generation stations with a capacity 20,000 mw of power were lying idle, riling his party's archrival on the coal block allocation scam.
He said coal was generally not locked inside the houses but stored outside and "even beggars don't take it away or thieves don't steal it."
"But the (Congress) government at Delhi has stolen that also," he said and upped his ante against the Congress when he said that people would have to protect coal by keeping them in bank lockers if the party continued in power.
Harping on his development plank, he claimed he had solved Gujarat's water and power shortage through various means.
He trained his guns against Congress and Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, whom he continued to describe as 'recounting Minister,' a jibe at his controversial 2009 election from Sivaganga.
"The size of the pipes taking water to 9000 villages from Narmada is so big that UPA leaders including the Recounting Minister with his family can sit in a maruti car and drive through it," he said.
