CHAMARAJANAGAR: Prime Minister
Narendra Modi on Tuesday dared AICC chief
Rahul Gandhi to speak about the achievements of Karnataka government for 15 minutes “without reading from any piece of paper”.
Getting even with Rahul, who had said last week that if he was allowed to speak for 15 minutes in Parliament, Modi would not be able to withstand it, the PM said: “He is right. There is no way ordinary people like me, who do not even dress well, can sit with such high and mighty people like the
Congress president.”
Modi vs Rahul in Karnataka : TOI's Campaign Tracker
Addressing a meet at Santhemarahalli in Chamarajanagar, Modi also challenged Rahul to take Sir M Visvesvaraya’s name five times in the 15-minute speech. “That is enough. The people of Karnataka will measure the strength of your words. Let him speak in any language – English, Hindi or his mother’s mother tongue (Italian). But I have one condition. Rahul has to utter Visvesvaraya’s name five times,” he stated.
During his tours of Karnataka, Rahul had found the Mysuru dewan’s name a tongue twister. Likening himself to ‘kaamdaar’ (worker), Modi said Rahul is a ‘naamdaar’ who makes mockery of ‘kaamdaars’. “As a ‘kaamdaar’ I ensured that 18,000 villages got electricity, but the naamdaar didn’t even say two good words about the workers who sweat blood.”
