PM Narendra Modi claimed Congress leaders had given up hopes of returning to power in Himachal Pradesh
SHIMLA:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday upped the pitch against the Congress in Himachal Pradesh, likening the state's ruling party to "termites" that needed to be rooted out. PM Modi also told the election rally that the Congress had already conceded defeat and its senior leaders had backed off.
"No senior Congress leader came here to campaign... They have left the field, leaving everything on fate," he said at the rally in Kangra district, the state's most populous district that is home to a fifth of the state's population. This was PM Modi's second visit in three days to Kangra that sends 16 legislators to the state's 68-member assembly.
But it isn't just PM Modi who has made his presence felt in the run up to next week's election.
The BJP has electrified the campaign, blending traditional rallies, front-page ads in newspapers and spots on radio and television with the use of social media to reach out to voters in the state's remote corners.
Besides, it has 68 vehicles mounted with huge television screens doing the round of the constituencies and hundreds of smaller groups of artists, performing street plays for the last three months.
It was on the back of this all-out campaign that PM Modi asked his supporters to ensure that there wasn't one polling booth "where this termite called Congress should be allowed to thrive".
The BJP's campaign is a sharp contrast to the Congress' low-key campaign that doesn't even have enough hands to run its war room in the state capital. Instead, it is largely dependent on the goodwill of its candidates and its 83-year-old Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh.
But there is so much that the six-time Mr Singh, who has been trying to criss-cross the state by road, can do. His aides say they cannot afford to hire a chopper for the chief minister.
Mr Singh, who is being probed by central investigative agencies, often makes it a point to this aspect to accuse the BJP's central government of harassing him.
"I have no money left for campaigning, all my accounts have been sealed by the Enforcement Directorate and income tax department," Mr Singh said at a rally in Kangra's Nurpur town, 40 km from where PM Modi spoke on Saturday.
A Congress leader said the BJP government had used its central agencies to selectively target its leaders and had rolled out a "flamboyant campaign" with its "insurmountable resources".
"Both PK Dhumal and son Anurag face cases for giving land worth to HP Cricket Association for a song. Why is IT and ED not acting against them," asked the Congress chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala.
BJP leader Anurag Thakur, who is also the son of the BJP's presumptive chief minister PK Dhumal, also took pot shots at the Congress, calling it a part of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi's deliberate strategy "to ensure the older generation of Congress leaders fail... and he can get his own team in place".
Soon after PM Modi's barbs after the Congress leaving fate to decide Himachal Pradesh, the Congress announced Mr Gandhi's three rallies in the state on Monday, the last day of campaigning for the elections on Thursday.
"No senior Congress leader came here to campaign... They have left the field, leaving everything on fate," he said at the rally in Kangra district, the state's most populous district that is home to a fifth of the state's population. This was PM Modi's second visit in three days to Kangra that sends 16 legislators to the state's 68-member assembly.
But it isn't just PM Modi who has made his presence felt in the run up to next week's election.
The BJP has electrified the campaign, blending traditional rallies, front-page ads in newspapers and spots on radio and television with the use of social media to reach out to voters in the state's remote corners.
Besides, it has 68 vehicles mounted with huge television screens doing the round of the constituencies and hundreds of smaller groups of artists, performing street plays for the last three months.
It was on the back of this all-out campaign that PM Modi asked his supporters to ensure that there wasn't one polling booth "where this termite called Congress should be allowed to thrive".
The BJP's campaign is a sharp contrast to the Congress' low-key campaign that doesn't even have enough hands to run its war room in the state capital. Instead, it is largely dependent on the goodwill of its candidates and its 83-year-old Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh.
But there is so much that the six-time Mr Singh, who has been trying to criss-cross the state by road, can do. His aides say they cannot afford to hire a chopper for the chief minister.
Mr Singh, who is being probed by central investigative agencies, often makes it a point to this aspect to accuse the BJP's central government of harassing him.
"I have no money left for campaigning, all my accounts have been sealed by the Enforcement Directorate and income tax department," Mr Singh said at a rally in Kangra's Nurpur town, 40 km from where PM Modi spoke on Saturday.
A Congress leader said the BJP government had used its central agencies to selectively target its leaders and had rolled out a "flamboyant campaign" with its "insurmountable resources".
"Both PK Dhumal and son Anurag face cases for giving land worth to HP Cricket Association for a song. Why is IT and ED not acting against them," asked the Congress chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala.
BJP leader Anurag Thakur, who is also the son of the BJP's presumptive chief minister PK Dhumal, also took pot shots at the Congress, calling it a part of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi's deliberate strategy "to ensure the older generation of Congress leaders fail... and he can get his own team in place".
Soon after PM Modi's barbs after the Congress leaving fate to decide Himachal Pradesh, the Congress announced Mr Gandhi's three rallies in the state on Monday, the last day of campaigning for the elections on Thursday.
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