New Delhi:
The BJP's star campaigner Narendra Modi launched a severe attack on Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit at a rally today that marked a highpoint in the party's campaign for the Delhi assembly elections, due in November.
Addressing a one lakh-plus strong audience at the Japanese Park in northwest Delhi's Rohini, Mr Modi said, "If anybody is happy here in Delhi, it is the Chief Minister. She doesn't have any work except cutting ribbons." (
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The BJP has its hopes pinned on the Modi factor to tilt the November elections, widely seen as a neck and neck race with the Congress. The party was trounced in the last three Delhi elections.
"If there is a law and order problem, she blames the Centre. She passes the buck up or down," Mr Modi said without naming Sheila Dikshit in his hour-long speech.
And then he touched a familiar chord. "When girls are raped in Delhi, the Chief Minister portrays a very motherly image and then tells the girls to be home by early evening. Any mother, any family can tell their daughters to stay home. What is the Chief Minister doing? What is her responsibility?" Mr Modi said.
The BJP's prime ministerial candidate was referring to the December 16 gang-rape of a paramedical student, who later died in a Singapore hospital.
Then came his attack on corruption during the 2010 Commonwealth Games, which he said has destroyed India's credibility and robbed it of sportsman's spirit. "We have lost the opportunity to brand India. We have harmed our country for the next 20 years," he said.
The Commonwealth Games, held in Delhi, were suffused with allegations of financial malpractices, forcing the Congress to suspend its Lok Sabha MP Suresh Kalmadi. The tainted politician is currently out on bail after spending 10 months in jail.
At today's rally, the BJP's Vijay Kumar Malhotra said with a straight face, "I challenge Shiela Dikshit, who is old enough to be my grandmother, for a public debate on whether people in Delhi are happy with her or not." Ms Dikshit is 75; Mr Malhotra, 81.
Navjot Singh Sidhu and Vijay Goel were the other leaders who spoke at the rally.