Congress dragging my parents into politics at Rahul's behest: Modi
Vidisha/Jabalpur (MP), Nov 25: Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed the Congress Sunday for dragging his parents into a political slugfest, alleging that it was being done at the behest of party chief Rahul Gandhi.
Calling the Congress a "burden on the nation", he also justified his own tirade against the Nehru-Gandhi family, pointing out that unlike his parents, they occupied top positions in politics and the government.
Congress leaders have kicked up a controversy recently by first comparing the falling value of the rupee to the advanced age of Modi's mother and then claiming that the father of the prime minister was not someone illustrious.
"What has happened to the Congress party? The 'naamdar' (dynast, referring to Rahul Gandhi) is tacitly supporting it and therefore, its leaders are dragging the name of my father, who passed away 30 years ago," Modi said, addressing a rally here in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh.
"The Congress is running out of steam in this election, so they have started dragging my parents into politics.
"No Congressman would make such a statement against me or my family without the consent of the party president. It is the 'naamdar' who is making his leaders speak against me," he added.
"My mother sits in her house, performing religious rites, confining herself to a room, and has never visited Madhya Pradesh. She does not even know the 'R' of 'rajneeti' (politics)," Modi said.
"Yesterday, they took the name of my mother and now my father. The Congress chief is behind this...," he alleged.
"Hundred generations of my family have no links with politics. We lived in a small village....lived like the poor.
"And the naamdar says, Modiji is also speaking against my family'," the prime minister said.
"Naamdar, I do not talk about your family members. I talk about former prime ministers, former Congress leaders. I speak against former Congress leaders, seeking an account of their work.
"Yes, I have to take their names as they were in politics, unlike my family members, who sit quietly in their home and do their job," he added.
"You throw questions at Modi, (then) just as Modi is accountable, your family too is answerable," the prime minister said.
The opposition party was left with no issues and was, therefore, indulging in this kind of abusive rhetoric, he added.
The previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had introduced a crop loan waiver scheme in 2008, but of the Rs 6-lakh crore agricultural debt, loans of only Rs 60,000 crore were waived, Modi claimed.
Former Union minister Vilas Muttemwar made a controversial statement at a Congress meeting in Rajasthan Saturday, saying nobody knew "the name of your (Modi's) father but everyone knows the name of Rahul Gandhi's father".
Before that, Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Raj Babbar had compared the falling value of the rupee to the advanced age of Modi's mother.
At Vidisha, Modi also mentioned his cabinet colleague and local MP Sushma Swaraj, lauding her for ensuring the development of the constituency, despite facing health issues.
Speaking at a rally in Jabalpur later, he alleged that of the last 15 years under Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, "10 years were lost because the government of Madam (UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi) put hurdles in the way of development".
"You have to decide. One mistake will take you back to the age of misgovernance when there was no power, the roads were broken, the education system was pathetic due to the absence of schools and the health services were poor," Modi said.
The Congress, which had lost elections in states after states, "has become a burden on the nation", he added.
"They (Congress) are unable to decide who will be their leader in Madhya Pradesh....There is a courtier (apparently referring to state Congress chief Kamal Nath), a raja (Digvijay Singh) and a maharaja (Jyotiraditya Scindia). None of them will become the chief minister," Modi asserted.
In a jibe at Rahul Gandhi, who has promised to make Madhya Pradesh a hub of mobile phone production if the Congress is voted to power in the state, the prime minister said there were only two mobile factories in the country in 2014, while now there were 125, ensuring the availability of low-cost smartphones.
Modi also said Jabalpur would emerge as a major defence production centre, adding that the earlier governments were more interested in buying weapons as that served their purposes.
The 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly will go to the polls on November 28 and the results will be announced on December 11.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
