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Sanjeev Balyan to first tell
Narendra Modi to go back to Gujarat,
Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Ajit Singh retorted when asked by ET about the BJP candidate’s campaign against him in Muzaffarnagar that he is an “outsider”.
ET caught up with Singh and his son,
Jayant Chaudhary, who are contesting from Muzaffarnagar and
Baghpat respectively and campaigned in each other’s constituencies on Tuesday.
Campaigning in Patla village of Modinagar in Baghpat – which was Singh’s bastion for long before he lost in 2014 – Singh did not mention his son even once, focusing all his energy on attacking PM Modi.
“Hai hai Modi, Modi gaya (Down with Modi, Modi is gone),” Singh said at the rally, his first for the day. He reminded the crowd of “Modi’s broken promises”, how their
sugarcane crop did not fetch them money within 14 days as promised by the UP government and that cane dues had risen to ?10,000 crore. “I understand they have no time… Modi and Yogi are busy chasing away cattle from your fields,” he said in Patla.
Asked by ET if his attacks on Modi could boomerang, Singh said, “See, the achhe din (good days, Modi’s poll promise of 2014) have only come for Modi – people see all this now. He changes clothes thrice daily… ?70 crore is spent on his wardrobe yearly, I have heard...”
The RLD chief said everyone lies once in a while, but the problem with Modi is he never speaks the truth. At another public meeting, in Modinagar’s Bhojpur village, he said Modi called people sharabi (alcoholics), referring to the PM’s recent address in Meerut. “This shows lutiya doob gayi hai (the ship has sunk),” he said.
Chaudhary did a day-long roadshow through 14 villages in Muzaffarnagar’s Khatauli area, focusing his attacks on the BJP for lathi-charge on farmers at the Delhi border on October 2 last year. “You were not even allowed to enter the national capital. You should answer that injustice by your vote,” Chaudhary told a gathering.