Uttar Pradesh elections: Beware of dynasts and vote-bank netas, says Modi in Amethi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday accused opposition parties of engaging in "vote-bank and dynastic politics" and sacrificing the interests of the nation at election rallies in Amethi and Prayagraj.

The prime minister also continued with his attack on opposition parties for their "silence" over a Gujarat court's verdict awarding death sentence to 38 convicts in Ahmedabad serial bomb blasts in 2008.

Both Amethi, a former Congress bastion, and Prayagraj, an important Hindu pilgrimage site that holds the Kumbh mela, vote on February 27 in the fifth phase of Uttar Pradesh elections.

In Prayagraj, Modi said two crore people visited Mecca and one crore visited Vatican City in 2019. "These countries had given facilities to visiting devotees, but if we do the same in India, these people view it through the lens of communalism," he claimed.

In Amethi, which used to be Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's parliamentary constituency before BJP's Smriti Irani breached it in 2019, Modi said there used to be inner democracy in Congress before the Independence, but after Independence the leadership has been with only one family. This has been copied by the Samajwadi Party, he said.