Lucknow, March 2
BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav lashed out at each other at their respective rallies in Uttar Pradesh today. Mulayam Singh Yadav targeted Modi at a rally at the parade ground in Allahabad while Modi responded to each of his accusations at his final Vijay Shankhnad rally at Lucknow’s Rama Bai Ambedkar Maidan.

The SP patriarch charged the Modi government in Gujarat of massacring Muslims and assaulting Muslim women. “And now after all these years, the BJP expects to be pardoned,” he said.

“You presided over the mass murder of Muslims... and after that, your leaders apologise to the community,” Mulayam said. He charged the BJP with “hoodwinking” the minority community by “sounding apologetic after having allowed their carnage”— an obvious reference to a recent statement by BJP president Rajnath Singh. “This is your move to gain votes and invade Delhi. But this dream will not come true,” he said. Modi said, “Though the heat of elections is yet to be felt, there is a wave in favour of the BJP due to which ‘sabka vinash’ (rout of the SP, the BSP and the Congress) is certain.... For them secularism, is all about vote bank.”

“They are misleading the people by wearing the veil of secularism to conceal their failures,” he said.

Modi said the SP government was responsible for 150 communal riots in a year while his government in Gujarat had not witnessed a single riot in a decade. “In the past one year of your son’s (Akhilesh’s) rule, more than 150 riots have taken place in UP, while there was not even a single riot in Gujarat in the last 10 years. Not even once was a curfew clamped there.

Don’t compare Gujarat with UP on development,” he said.

He said the Muslims were much happier and well off in Gujarat than those in Uttar Pradesh. He said 38,000 persons had applied for Haj yatra from Gujarat as compared to 32,000 such applicants from the more populous Uttar Pradesh.

Mulayam accused Modi of spreading a lie that people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar went to Gujarat in search of jobs. He said the minimum wage is both these states were higher than those in Gujarat.

He quoted a number of sources to claim that “more than 30 per cent women and 50 per cent children are malnourished in Gujarat”. “Rivers of the state are among the most polluted. Daily wages given to those working in the unorganised sector are lower than that in Uttar Pradesh. You (Modi) call this good governance and development? I call it nothing but baseless propaganda,” he said. Modi accused Yadav of misleading the people as the average annual income in Uttar Pradesh was just Rs 26,000 as compared to Rs 75,000 in Gujarat.

“He (Mulayam) is spreading lies about Gujarat....He should first visit Gujarat and see that electricity is available there 24 hours, 365 days while there is no power in his state. In UP, there is reservation as far as distribution of electricity is concerned. Areas of Netaji are getting power, while other places did not have power....,” he said. Mulayam advised his ministers and elected representatives to focus on development rather than contracts and illegal mining.

(With PTI inputs)