Escalating his attack on the ruling Congress while addressing a range of critical issues, from the assaults on Africans and youth from the north east in Delhi, to the plight of farmers and citizens in general, Narendra Modi said that the Congress leadership has drunk so deeply of the ‘poison’ called power that it was spewing venom all over the nation, of which the current turmoil in Andhra-Telangana is a poignant example.

Addressing a mammoth Vijay Shankhnaad rally in Meerut on Sunday, he mocked the Congress leadership for adopting a new style of giving completely different answers to questions asked (a possible dig at Rahul Gandhi’s unforgettable interview with Times Now). Thus, if one asks Sonia Gandhi why farmers are committing suicide, she responds that some people are harvesting poison (‘zehar ki kheti’)! Countering the allegation, the Gujarat strongman pointed out that at the party convention in Jaipur (where Rahul Gandhi was appointed vice president), the Gandhi scion said that he had gone to his mother’s room that morning and she told him that ‘power is poison’ (satta zehar hai).

To roars of appreciation from the mammoth gathering, he thundered, “Who has been in power the most in the past 60 years? Who tasted poison the most?” Narendra Modi answered that Congress has drunk so much poison that it is spewing poison; it has sown the seeds of poison and is now harvesting the fruits. The party’s very character is divisive; it is addicted to the politics of vote-banks and making communities, castes and States fight each other, and this is the real zehar ki kheti. In contrast to the mess in Andhra and Telangana, where both sides are on fire owing to the ‘todo aur raj karo rajiniti’, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had lovingly carved out Uttarakhand from Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand from Bihar and Chhattisgarh from Madhya Pradesh.

In a changing world, the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate said, Delhi should develop as a global city. Instead, the language used and recent events there make us hang our heads in shame before the whole world. Recently, African women were misbehaved with; girls from Manipur were harassed, and a young student from Arunachal Pradesh was harassed and beaten to death. Charging Congress president Sonia Gandhi of being indifferent to what was happening under her nose, he said children from any part of the country coming to Delhi for education or employment must be looked after; the city must provide hostels for them and care for their security: “They are the youth and blood of the country, and their security is our responsibility”. Accusing the Delhi Government of dereliction of duty, he said one has to go to Arunachal Pradesh to see how ordinary citizens are fighting for India against China, shunning all allurements; Arunachalis greet everyone with ‘Jai Hind’ and their sons are killed (in Delhi). He lauded the Saraswati Vidya Mandir of Meerut for bringing children from the north-east and educating them.

Meerut is the land of heroes and sacrifices, he said, and the sea of saffron surging in the maidan and beyond was witness to a new history when the kamal and roti ka sandesh of 1857 would be realised in 2014. Lauding Meerut as the prerna sthali of 1857, he condemned the Government of India for conducting such low key celebrations of the 150th anniversary of 1857 in Meerut that the nation never came to know of the great sacrifices made by so many Indian youth from so many parts of the country. The UPA, he pointed out, dared not highlight this event because then the country would discard the lies fed by Congress that it was the only party that fought for freedom from the British. Congress, he charged, has never accepted or respected the sacrifices made by others, “ye shaheedon ka apman hai, swatantra sangram ka apman hai” (this is an insult to the martyrs, to the freedom movement).

Arya Samaj founder Swami Dayanand Saraswati, who hailed from Gujarat, had made this region his karambhoomi and deeply influenced its culture. But it is interesting, he joked, that a famous poet of the region, Hari Om Pawar, used to frequently come to Gujarat and say ‘Ahmedabad is just like Meerut, there are always dangas here’. Conceding this was true till a decade ago, the Gujarat strongman said that the people decided that they had had enough of vote-bank politics and troubles and opted for the path of communal amity and development, and since then it has been a danga mukt Gujarat.

In Uttar Pradesh, on the other hand, the security of women is a big headache. In just one year of the new regime, 1.5 lakh cases of harassment have been registered by girls and women, and this is enough to gauge the number of unregistered cases. Challenging Mulayam Singh and Akhilesh Yadav to honour the women by fixing the law and order in the State, he said they should not compete with him by holding rallies, but by positive action in the interest of women and farmers.

Two days ago, Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav) gave a speech saying that the welfare budget of Uttar Pradesh was larger than the whole budget of Gujarat. This may well be true, Narendra Modi conceded, but why are people happy in Gujarat and unhappy in Uttar Pradesh? The answer will be found when we follow the money trail and see to whose welfare this budget is catering. He promised that if the BJP forms the next Government, it would protect the national treasury (tijori) from every misguided hand (panja).

Over 60 lakh sugarcane farmers in western UP they cannot feed their families as the sugar mills are idle. This is a shame in the land of Chaudhary Charan Singh and Mahendra Singh Tikait, and even worse that the neglect is happening at the hands of a follower of Ram Manohar Lohia. In Gujarat, the sugar mills (which are cooperatives owned by farmers) start rolling on Vijayadashmi and farmers are paid promptly. The mill to which each farmer will take his crop is pre-decided so that no injustice can be done. Further, productivity and yields have been increased through the use of tissue culture, genetic engineering and drip irrigation technologies, thus giving farmers higher incomes; this model can be reproduced anywhere.

Instead, Meerut is a sad story of missed opportunities, and if conditions are so pitiable in western UP which stimulates growth in the whole State, one can readily imagine conditions elsewhere. Electricity is just one sorry story; the lack of adequate roads, railways and even an airport cannot be explained in independent India when so many top Central leaders and Ministers hailed from Uttar Pradesh. The British never forgave Meerut for 1857 and deprived it of opportunities, but today, being so close to Delhi, there should have been an express highway linking the two cities. This was envisioned by Atal ji in 1999, but the UPA had scuttled it in concert with the visionless politics of the Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party.

Development in UP, was unfortunately only in the direction of criminalisation. Narendra Modi pointed out that one decade ago, UP accounted for only 13 per cent of crimes in India, but now accounts for 45 per cent of criminal cases in India. Serious offences under the Arms Act and Terrorist Act have risen 240 per cent, under the protection of a benign State, and the ordinary citizen is simply crushed.

Pointing out that corruption is eating into the vitals of the State and the nation, Narendra Modi said India has had enough of poisonous politics, crime and corruption, and now stands at a crossroads from where it can choose the path of growth and development, where mothers and sisters are safe.

BJP president Rajnath Singh said that just as Mangal Pandey launched the revolution that eventually threw the British out of India, Meerut would once again play an historic role in the ouster of the Congress. He asked the people to give all 14 Lok Sabha seats of the region to the BJP. Pointing out that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had fueled the anti-Sikh violence by saying that the earth inevitably shakes when a great tree falls, he said that in Gujarat there was one unfortunate incident which was condemned by the Chief Minister who thereafter ensured that nothing untoward was allowed to happen in the State; today minorities here are better off than in other States. But under the Congress, the BSP and the SP, communal riots continue and they are unable to control the situation. He charged that the government was responsible for the trouble in Muzaffarnagar, where even aid to victims was distributed on the basis of religious affiliation. In deference to the large number of ex-servicemen present at the rally, Rajnath Singh promised that the BJP would fulfill the One Rank One Pension demand of military veterans.

Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh, who hails from Meerut and is likely to be the BJP candidate for the constituency, was present on the occasion, along with former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, State in-charge Amit Shah, State unit chief Laxmikant Bajpai, leaders like Vinay Katiyar, Lalji Tandon, Hukum Singh, Surya Pratap Shahi; Lieutenant General Niranjan Singh Malik, and others.