Mumbai, December 22
In a strategic move ahead of the 2014 General Elections, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi today presented before the country new catchphrases of his party “Vote for India” and “Sharmdev Jayate”.

While the first one was obviously to target the Congress on its “minority vote bank politics”, the second appeared a fallout of the Aam Aadmi Party’s amazing success in Delhi as along with “Sharmdev Jayate” he also told the cheering crowds at the Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex that poor were the real VIPs - the Very Important Persons - of the country.

Marking the beginning of the BJP’s efforts to maximise electoral gains from Maharashtra, Modi urged people not to vote for any party but “desh”- the country. “Dal se bada desh hota hai,” the country is more important than the party, he said. Slamming rival Congress on its “vote bank appeasement policies”, he said: “I wish that in 2014 elections, votes are sought for the country and not in the name of a party. So I want to say Vote for India.”Then in his trademark style, he engaged the crowds, prompting them to shout “Vote for India” as he enlisted one by one the country’s problems ranging from corruption to unemployment to black money to women safety issues. The BJP had pulled out all stops to make the rally a huge success.

However, the party did not make any special effort to showcase the minority faces. So, an extra dose of skull caps and burkas was missing from the rally christened “Mahagarjana”.

Local leaders said the party’s efforts to prove its pro-Muslim credentials at some of its earlier rallies had drawn flak and digressed attention from the real issues.

However, as a special gesture, Mumbai’s tea vendors were invited and, as expected, Modi did not forget to re-establish his tea vendor status. Interestingly, even though it was Samajwadi Party’s Naresh Aggarwal who had scorned Modi over his tea vendor antecedents.

Modi’s tea vendor status is now proudly worn as a badge by BJP leaders, who taunt the Opposition at rallies. Today, for example, party president Rajnath Singh asked if Abraham Lincoln could become the US President despite being a woodcutter, Barack Obama could touch the same heights despite being an ice cream vendor and APJ Abdul Kalam become the President of India despite being a newspaper vendor why could Modi, who was a tea vendor, not become the PM. Corruption and unemployment were focus of his speech as Modi targeted the ruling Congress-NCP alliance in the state and the UPA at the Centre.

The multi-million irrigation and Adarsh scams in Maharashtra did not go unmentioned. He attacked Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on the issue. Without naming him he said: “I was listening to a top Congress leader speaking against corruption and look at his audacity. They are so deep in corruption and still he presented an innocent face. They reject the Adarsh report and on the other, they lecture on freeing India of corruption”.

Modi laid the blame for several ills faced by the country at the door of the Grand Old Party, saying “Our problems are not because of our population, geography, history or lack of natural resources but are entirely due to successive Congress governments.”

He said the Quit India call against the British given by Mahatma Gandhi in this city in 1942 should be renewed against the Congress. “If we want to be free from all the problems plaguing the nation, India should be freed from Congress clutches,” Modi said to a cheers from the crowd.

On the issue of minorities, Modi accused the Congress of betraying the Muslims by playing minority politics. “The Congress is playing vote-bank politics. They are practising divide and rule learnt from the British. In 90 districts across India where Muslims are in a majority,

PM announced packages. When asked in Parliament about the expenses in those districts in the past 3 years, they said not a rupee has been spent,” Modi said. He himself spoke for around 45 minutes beginning his speech in Marathi before switching over to Hindi.

(With inputs from Shiv Kumar)