Narendra Modi slams ‘B’ team of Congress in Delhi

New Delhi, 26 March 2014

Condemning without naming the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as the B Team of the Congress, Narendra Modi said that the nation has never before witnessed the spectacle of the ruling party and other opposition parties uniting to defeat a contending party. In previous elections, he mused, the opposition parties would try to unite and try to bring about a change in the regime, “But this is the first election where a united front has been forged against Modi, to ensure that the BJP should not win.”

Addressing the Bharat Vijay Rally in the capital on Wednesday evening, the BJP’s Prime Ministerial contender said that the nation has never seen so much failure and ruination in a single decade. The Government is drenched in evil, its behaviour irresponsible, and its arrogance so high that it cannot even see clearly. There is no concern for the people, and despite this, the nation faces the peculiar (adbudh) situation in which the Government and opposition parties unite to defeat the principal rival, the BJP. This situation has arisen, he said, because these parties have realised that the people have decided to whom they will entrust their future; both political pundits and ordinary voters are having the same opinion, and this has upset the remaining parties.

Focusing his ire on the AAP, the Gujarat strongman said that Delhi has had some very unique experiences in recent times because of the unity of the Congress A-Team and B-Team, which united to form the Government. Thereafter, he pointed out, the B Team resigned and ran to help the Congress in the national elections, and return the governance of Delhi back to the Congress via the stratagem of President’s rule, which means rule by the Lt Governor who is a Congress appointee.

This rigmarole of abusing the Congress to garner votes, and then sitting in the lap of the Congress to form the Government, and then doing dramas to quit for the benefit of the Congress would have awoken the people to the truth about the Congress B Team, he said. Amidst heavy chanting of his name throughout his brief speech, the BJP veteran said that in politics, at the time of the Jana Sangh and later the BJP, the leaders had spent 25 to 40 years in the opposition. They would win some corporators and MLA seats and though they never formed the Government, they were committed to fighting for the rights of the people and bettering their lot as best as they could. They even went to jail or took beatings from the police, “We still do it,” he said.

But in Delhi, some people (an allusion to the AAP) went to night shelters with photo journalists and scolded officers in public, but now they have run away and forgotten the people of Delhi. “Who will look after the raina baseras now?” he asked. The responsibility of democracy has not been fulfilled, there is no maturity and no loyalty to the people, he lamented, adding that while honest mistakes can be forgiven, betrayal cannot. These betrayers have no place in politics and Delhi has now seen the various faces of the Congress. The Congress, he warned, is adept at painting new masks on its old face to achieve its ends, so the people must remain alert, remember the lessons of the recent experience with the Delhi Government, and ensure that old mistakes are not repeated.