Lucknow/Sonebhadra, May 11
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today came down heavily on the Opposition alliance in Uttar Pradesh for raising questions on his caste, asserting that he belongs to the caste of all poor countrymen.
Addressing a rally here, Modi continued to attack the Congress over its leader Sam Pitroda’s “hua to hua” remark on the anti-Sikh riots. National security also figured prominently. Modi accused a previous coalition government of weakening the intelligence agencies and recalled that the Pokhran nuclear tests took place on this day 21 years ago.
“They have destroyed Uttar Pradesh and now the SP and BSP have come together to save themselves from destruction,” he said, calling their alliance “mahamilavati” or adulterated. “They have started a new thing about my caste,” he said, in an apparent reference to Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati’s jibe that he is a “farzi backward” — a “fake” OBC leader.
“I want to tell them that Modi belongs to just one caste — whatever caste the poor belong to, I belong to that caste,” he said, listing the schemes that his government has launched for them.
He claimed that the country’s intelligence agencies suffered when a third front government, which included the SP, was in power at the Centre. “Our intelligence agencies were weakened by an earlier ‘mahamilavati’ government, but the Vajpayee government set that right,” he said. — TNS/PTI
from The Tribune http://bit.ly/2VedAR3
via Today’s News Headlines
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