New Delhi: BJP President Amit Shah on Friday exuded confidence that they will win a clear majority in the Lok Sabha elections and cruise past 300. So, it will be another NDA government with pre-poll alliance partners but others were welcome to jump onto the bandwagon.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi vehemently refused to pre-empt and speculate on what the discerning electorate has decided, saying he will wait for their mandate on May 23, when the votes will be counted. His party’s decisions will be based on that mandate. “Why be impatient when 23rd is not far away,” he replied when needled repeatedly.
Both the Congress and the BJP held parallel press conferences at their party headquarters, almost simultaneously, just before the curtains were rung down on the 2-month-old poll campaign for the last and seventh round of polling on Sunday. PM Modi briefly spoke on how after decades a party will be winning an election again. He gloated in the fact that he could campaign without a single programme being cancelled; even the weather did not disrupt his electioneering.
Rahul was extremely excited when told that PM Modi was at last holding his first press conference, saying that he was ‘‘very impressed’’. He went on to ask the PM why he did not agree on a Rafale debate; and why Anil Ambani was gifted a Rs 3,000-crore IAF offset order. No reporter at the BJP presser asked about it and in any case the reply would have come from Shah, as was in the case of other questions.
Modi, his opening remarks, noted how his experiment of “last-mile delivery” proved to be a grand success and he is waiting to form a new government.He said the people have already decided to give him the mandate.Shah blamed West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee for violence in the state.
He said the BJP was contesting all over the country and there was no violence in other states; on the other hand, the BJP has lost 80 party workers in Bengal. On the show-cause notices issued to Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and two other party MPs for their objectionable statements, Shah said the disciplinary committee has sent notices to them and the party will act after it gets the committee’s report.
At the AICC press conference, Rahul was blunt in accusing PM Modi of adhering to a cult of violence and not the creed of Mahatma Gandhi. Earlier in the day, he had tweeted: “I finally get it. The BJP and the RSS are not God-Ke Lovers. They are God-Se Lovers.” An apparent condemnation for Pragya praising Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse as a “patriot.”
Asked about the Election Commission ignoring all Congress complaints against PM Modi and the BJP President, Rahul opened up: “It is not good to say that the Election Commission’s role was biased. Others were pulled up for similar statements PM Modi made, but the EC found nothing wrong in his case.” He went on to accuse the EC of partiality in drawing up the poll schedule so as to benefit the PM in his campaign.
“We objected but we trust the EC as an institution.” He also pointed out that the BJP had unlimited money, unlimited TV coverage. Rahul also could not resist from chiding the media, which had asked PM Modi only soft questions on mundane subjects like mangoes and the clothes he wears.
In reply to a question, he said he would not say anything on Modi’s parents, irrespective of whether they are in politics or not, but Modi is welcome to say anything about his family. In reply to a question, Rahul said the Congress fought the elections well and tried to corner PM Modi and dismantle his ideas.
He said: “We closed every door he could escape. They slammed doors on us in 10% cases, we did in 90% cases.” Asked about the future role of his mother Sonia Gandhi and former PM Manmohan Singh, he quipped that the Congress will take advantage of their experience and he was not Modi to push them away.
