New Delhi: The Congress on Monday claimed the BJP’s graph is on a “relentless downward trajectory” and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign is getting”more desperate”.
“With four phases of the elections now concluded… Mr. Modi’s farewell is now exactly three weeks away,” Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.
“The BJP’s graph continues on it is relentless downward trajectory: South mein Saaf; North, West, aur East mein Half,” he said, claiming that the BJP will be wiped out in southern states and its strength will reduce to half in other regions.
Ramesh said that PM Modi has even stopped paying his “customary lip service to vikas” and the agenda for the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections has been set entirely by the Congress and Rahul Gandhi.
“The PM’s campaign is getting ever more desperate…. The ground reality for his party has been so difficult that he has turned on his friends, and for the first time ever, implicitly acknowledged his government’s nexus with their businesses,” he alleged.
As polling concluded on Monday in the fourth phase of the seven-phase elections, Ramesh claimed that “a wave is brewing in favour of the INDIA coalition”.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding a roadshow in his Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency, Ramesh also claimed that the holy city did not get a single new school or hospital in the last decade and asked why the port there had “failed”.
“The outgoing PM is doing a roadshow in Varanasi today evening – not on a tempo though. Here are three questions for him: Why did Varanasi Port fail? Why is it now being sold to Adani? Why has the outgoing PM failed to open a single school or hospital in Varanasi,” he said in another post while asking the prime minister to break his silence.
He said even after 10 years of Modi representing Varanasi and the launching of the Swachh Bharat Yojana, Modi has been unable to eradicate manual scavenging from even his own constituency and claimed “25 people lost their lives due to manual scavenging” in Varanasi.
“Maybe this is not surprising – in his book “Karmayog,” Mr. Modi justified manual scavenging, terming it a “spiritual experience” for the Valmiki community.
“The Congress Party demands better – we brought a law against manual scavenging under the UPA in 2013, and in the Congress NyayPatra we have promised strict enforcement of this law and compensation for all those affected,’ he said in another post.
Ramesh said that Varanasi Port was inaugurated in early 2019, after an expenditure of thousands of crores of rupees, and for handling an estimated 3.55 million metric tons of cargo.
By March 2020, it was handling less than 0.008% of that, he said, adding that first Varanasi residents had to suffer the indignity of being “gifted” this project – even though it was funded through their own tax money.
“Now, they have to suffer the indignity of a non-functional port. As of 2021, the Double Anyay Sarkar has decided to privatise this failure, and to nobody’s surprise, Adani Ports was the only bidder.
“Why is the PM so keen to hand over every single national resource to Adani? Why is there no investigation into the complete failure of this port, and the diversion of funds to it,” he asked.
The Congress leader also asked why after 10 years as MP and PM, Varanasi has not got a single new government hospital or a new Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya or Kendriya Vidyalaya.
“Where are the new schools and additional hospital beds needed to keep up with this increase in population? Why has the outgoing PM neglected these basic needs of his constituents,” he asked.
Ramesh also accused the Modi government of betraying the youth of the country by introducing the Agnipath scheme.
On a day Modi campaigned in Bihar, Ramesh also posed a set of questions to him relating to the state, asking why promises of setting up airports in Muzaffarpur, Purnea and Bhagalpur “have not been fulfilled” and why the state’s sugar mills are “lying idle”.
“Keeping up our ‘tempo’, here is a ‘bori’ of four questions for the outgoing Prime Minister in Bihar today: Where are the promised airports for Muzaffarpur, Purnea, or Bhagalpur? Why are Bihar’s sugar mills lying idle?” the Congress general secretary asked in a post on X.
“Why has Namami Gange resulted in increasing pollution in the Ganga? Why is the PM so keen on the Agnipath scheme?” he asked.
“Patahi Airport joins Purnea and Bhagalpur as cities that need and deserve airports, but have only received broken promises under the Bharatiya Jumla Party. Why has the PM repeatedly lied to the people of Bihar on this subject?” the Congress leader asked.
He also claimed that the PM rebranded the UPA’s river cleaning projects as ‘Namami Gange’ in June 2014 and has spent over Rs 20,000 crore on it since then.
“Where are the results? In Bihar, the number of polluted stretches of the river has increased by 200% in just 4 years – from 6 in 2018 to 18 in 2022.
