Assembly election: Congress abused me 91 times, Karnataka voters will reply, says PM Narendra Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who launched the second and final leg of his campaign in poll-bound Karnataka on Saturday, said Congress and its functionaries have so far hurled 91 types of abuses at him.
He said the people of Karnataka would respond to this abuse with votes on May 10. “Someone made a list of all the 91 different abuses and sent it to me. Had Congress people put the same effort into good governance and boosting the morale of their workers instead of wasting time on this dictionary of abuses, the party wouldn’t have been in such a pathetic state,” Modi said at a public rally at Humnabad, in Bidar district, about 700km from Bengaluru.
At an election rally at Vijayapura, about 500km from Bengaluru, Modi took an indirect swipe at former CM Siddaramaiah, saying, “A Congress leader is seeking votes in the name of retirement. His biggest poll plank is: ‘This is my last election. Give me a chance.' What a pathetic state they have reached,” Modi said, adding that Karnataka’s people would not choose a “tired and defeated” Congress but a BJP teeming with enthusiasm.

Addressing a public meeting in Mysuru, defence minister Rajnath Singh said Congress was traumatised by Modi’s growing popularity and, therefore, was making demeaning remarks about him.

'Congress abusing me as I’ve shut down all its sources of corruption'
Attacking Congress at another public meeting, in Belagavi, PM Modi said: “Congress owns corruption while BJP owns Amrit Kaal.”

He added: “When the very foundations and ideas of a party are parivarvaad (dynasty), when a party’s existence depends upon a corrupt ecosystem, it cannot deliver results on the ground. It cannot work for the welfare of the people.”

At the Humnabad rally, the PM said he was not the only one to have been targeted by Congress of late. “Last election they ran a campaign, ‘Chowkidar chor hai’; then they said ‘Modi chor’, then ‘OBC community is chor’. Now that the election season has arrived in Karnataka, they had the guts to call my Lingayat brothers and sisters ‘chor’,” Modi said, referring to former Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah’s recent “corrupt Lingayat CM” jibe.
In the clip that went viral on social media recently, Siddaramaiah was asked about his views on BJP batting for a Lingayat as the next CM to woo the community. “Already a Lingayat is CM. He has indulged in corruption and spoiled the state,” the opposition leader had responded.
On AICC chief Mallikarjuna Kharge likening him to a “poisonous snake”, Modi said: “Congress is abusing me because I have shut down all its sources of corruption. Insulting those who work for the poor and the country is part of Congress’s history. The more mud they sling at BJP, the more the lotus (BJP’s electoral symbol) will bloom.”

The PM claimed that Congress had even abused B R Ambedkar and Veer Savarkar. “Ambedkar himself had once said in detail that Congress abused him repeatedly and called him a ‘raakshas' (demon), ‘rashtra drohi' (traitor to the nation), and ‘dagabaaz' (cheat),” Modi said, adding that he considers the abuse hurled at him as a gift from Congress.
Appealing to the electorate to vote in a stable, strong and full-majority BJP government, Modi said the Karnataka poll is not just for formation of a government for five years but also to make the state “number one” in the country.
Watch PM Modi: 'Every time Congress abuse me, it gets demolished'