Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressing a rally at Gurdaspur, Punjab, attacked the Congress party for appointing Kamal Nath, who has been accused of participating in the massacre of Sikhs in 1984, as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh.
PM Modi in Gurdaspur,Punjab: Jinka itihaas hazaron Sikh bhai behno ko berahmi se hatya ka ho aur jo aaj bhi dango ke aaropiyon ko mukhyamantri pad ka puruskar de rahe hain, un logon se Punjab samet desh vasiyon ko satark rehne ki zarurat hai. pic.twitter.com/qwq378fAe6
— ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019
He said, “Those who have a history of slaughtering thousands of Sikhs mercilessly and who still reward those accused of rioting with the post of Chief Minister, not only Punjab but the entire country should be wary of them.”
Prime Minister Modi also claimed credit for the conviction of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar who was recently sent to jail. He said the NDA government constituted the SIT that led to Sajjan’s conviction.
PM Narendra Modi in Gurdaspur,Punjab: Ek parivaar ke ishaare par jin jin aaropiyon ko ‘sajjan’ bata kar file daba di gayi, NDA sarkar ne unko bahar nikala, SIT ka gathan kiya aur parinaam sabke saamne hai pic.twitter.com/MGNI3TfMKK
— ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019
Narendra Modi also attacked the Congress party over its politics of farm loan waiver. “The manner in which Congress duped the nation with the slogan of ‘Garibi Hatao’, the party is now duping people in the name of loan waivers,” he stated.
PM Narendra Modi in Gurdaspur,Punjab: Jaise Congress ne desh ko ‘gharibi hatao’ ke naare ke saath thaga, vo ab desh ko karzmaafi ke naam par thag rahi hai pic.twitter.com/tQ7KmpXpzB
— ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019
In reference to Navjot Singh Sidhu’s antics in Pakistan with regards to the Kartarpur Corridor, Modi said, “Just for their politics, Congress leaders gave a chance to Pakistan. It is surprising that these Congress leaders did not even pay heed to their own Punjab CM.”
During this speech, Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter to assert that the Prime Minister had “fled” Parliament to instead “lecture students” at Lovely Professional University in Punjab. He urged students to ask him the four questions on Rafale that Rahul Gandhi had posed to the Prime Minister.
So it seems our PM has fled Parliament & his own open book Rafale exam & is instead lecturing students at Lovely Univ. in Punjab, today.
I request the students there to, respectfully, ask him to please answer the 4 questions posed to him by me, yesterday. #RafaleScam
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 3, 2019
OpIndia reached out to some students from LPU to understand how they felt about the Prime Minister’s speech and the ensuing tweet by Rahul Gandhi that accused the Prime Minister of ‘running away’ from the Parliament to lecture the students.
The students had a rather different take on the entire matter. So students we spoke to slammed Rahul Gandhi for his tweet and said that the Prime Minister’s speech inspired them.
One student said that after the Supreme Court had given a clean chit to the Rafale deal, it was incorrect of Rahul Gandhi to bring it up over and over again. It’s time that he put the matter to rest.
Another said that the Prime Minister’s speech was an inspiration for the young students and Rahul Gandhi’s tweet was wrong. He said that students are the future of the country and Rahul Gandhi should not tweet saying the Prime Minister “fled” the Parliament.
A third student said that Prime Minister in his speech told the students about how science is important in our daily lives and how students can help bring new technology that would help the farmers. She too vehemently disagreed with Rahul Gandhi’s tweet and said that the PM did not lecture the students but inspired them.
The students that we spoke to can be seen here:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzIi6EqgMF8]
Narendra Modi’s rally at Gurdaspur marks the beginning of the campaign for the 2019 General Elections. It is reported that he will tour 20 states in the next 100 days to galvanize the party for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The focus will be to secure gains from areas where it had not performed well the last time around.
