Escalating his nationwide drive to drum up support ahead of the 2014 general election, Narendra Modi exhorted the youth to dare to dream (sapne dekhne chahiyein) and promised that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would work to fulfill their aspirations. Addressing a mammoth Vijay Shankhnad Rally at Gorakhpur on the birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on Thursday afternoon, the BJP’s Prime Ministerial contender said India is a rich nation and its people should be rich; hence the forthcoming Parliamentary election would be a “fight against poverty”.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, he recalled, asked the youth to give him their blood in return for the promise of freedom, but he was seeking a 60-month mandate to give them peace and prosperity “main aapko sukh chain doonga”. Lambasting the Congress for remembering the poor only at election time, Narendra Modi challenged the party to explain why poverty was galloping in the nation despite all the talk of eradication. The Congress, he concluded, wants to keep the poor mired in poverty in order to enhance its electoral prospects and will never empower them to rise out of the doldrums. This mindset hates the poor who are kept as votebanks; the nation should no longer tolerate this insult to the poor.

This can be discerned in their (Congress) dislike of a chai-wala, a son of a poor mother who walks with his head high, he said. Explaining that he was not taking up cudgels against the Congress because of any personal grievance, “It is not a question of a chai-wala.” But he was opposing the mindset and politics that made fun of the poor, he pointed out that one leader of the party said one could get a good meal in Rs 12, and another then said, “No. Rs 5.” Is this possible, he asked and the gathering responded with a thundering no.

Poverty is something that such persons cannot understand. The cold, the heat, sickness, all hit the poor the hardest, but New Delhi and Lucknow are not willing to fight the demon of poverty. Uttar Pradesh, he bemoaned, is the land of the Ganga and Yamuna, and yet with all its natural resources, it remains mired in backwardness and despair. The youth leave their homes and hearth, friends and parents, and go and struggle for a livelihood outside the State. Youth from almost every village in eastern Uttar Pradesh have come to Gujarat to work, he said.

Ten years of sustained effort is all that it will take to transform Uttar Pradesh, the Gujarat Chief Minister said. Mocking the ruling family in the State, he said, “Wherever I go, the father and son follow me.” (watch my movements). As the crowd cheered, he mimicked the SP leaders’ debunking his (Modi’s) ability to transform UP into Gujarat, “Netaji (an euphemism for Mulayam Singh), making UP into Gujarat means 24 hours electricity for 365 days of the year, in every village and street. You don’t have the capacity to do this. It takes a chhappan inch (56-inch) chest to do so.” This akhara-style rebuke at the manliness of the Samajwadi Party president, a former wrestler, was aimed at the recent extravagant Saifai Mahotsav where SP leaders enjoyed themselves while the State reeled in myriad problems and people suffered in the bitter cold of Muzaffarnagar relief camps.

Continuing his challenge, Narendra Modi said that to become like Gujarat means 10 years of non-stop 10 per cent growth, without faltering at 3-4 per cent as Uttar Pradesh is doing under the present dispensation. If the Samajwadi Party could take Uttar Pradesh to the same heights of peace, prosperity and communal harmony as Gujarat, the Gujaratis would flock to Uttar Pradesh for employment, he promised. The Samajwadi Party, he emphasised, had got a handsome mandate from the people but was not able to deliver on employment, the security of women, and ruined the State with its petty politics. Humne UP ko abaad karne ki shapath li hai, he asserted, adding that UP has the capacity to wipe out the poverty of the nation single-handed and give employment to all youth in the country. But the condition was that it elected leaders committed to development (vikas).

Why, he mused, are sugarcane farmer helpless in UP? He challenged the SP leaders to go to Gujarat and see the link between sugarcane farmers and sugar mills. The farmers, he pointed out, are paid on time and the mills send sugar to the markets on time. But a State that cannot even conduct school and college examinations on time, and causes students to waste a whole year because of late results, can hardly be expected to run factories on time. It can only waste human resources.

Why, he exhorted, does a State with ample water resources and cattle and fodder, import milk from outside? Why can’t there be an Amul type of dairy here? A White Revolution can provide employment to all the youth and end the problems in the village; only the people must dare to dream… The lack of political will was crippling the farm sector, and even as farmers queued up to buy fertiliser and resorted to the black market, fertiliser factories like the one in Gorakhpur remained locked up. The future of village youth, he suggested, could be made secure by strengthening traditional farming while devoting equal energy to cattle and milk production, and growing trees to augment farm incomes and end the costly import of timber. A family that plants just five trees on the birth of each daughter could meet the cost of their weddings without going to the moneylender, he said.

India, the Gujarat strongman said, wants to compete with the world and not continue to wallow in the present morass. It needs the politics of growth and development and good governance, and a respite from the politics of vote-banks. It needs to end the reign of rulers and bring in persons who serve. Urging eastern UP to give the BJP all the 13 Lok Sabha seats in its kitty, Narendra Modi said the winds of change were already blowing hard and the BJP had scored a massive mandate in four out of five-State elections recently. Even more impressive was the mandate the party received from the poor and marginalised communities that Congress has regarded as its committed vote-banks and has treated with contempt — these have now turned to the BJP for respect.

BJP president Rajnath Singh lambasted the SP for its two year reign that had vitiated the atmosphere with its communal and vote-bank agenda where even poverty alleviation is planned on communal lines. He blasted the UPA for mooting a communal violence legislation that would hold the majority community responsible for every communal incident in the country, and said BJP would never allow such a Bill to become law. Condemning Sonia Gandhi’s attack on the BJP and Manmohan Singh’s tirade against Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh countered that the country had witnessed the worst communal riots under Congress’s watch. In contrast, States ruled by the BJP were generally peaceful, and the highest-earning minorities were in Gujarat.

Gorakhsha Peeth chief and local MP, Yogi Adityanath blasted the authorities for putting hurdles in the way of Narendra Modi’s rally on the pretext of security. The Seema Suraksha Bal, he said, welcomed jihadis from Nepal and escorted them to Jammu & Kashmir (under Omar Abdullah’s dubious rehabilitation policy which was never extended to Kashmiri Pandits) but opposed the BJP rally on grounds of security. It was the large-hearted people of 12 Scheduled Caste villages, who were totally neglected by the BSP and the SP, who made the rally possible, he said, and urged the BJP to pay special attention to the region when it came to power, particularly its crippling medical problems like Japanese encephalitis and other diseases.