In the final hours of campaigning on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP stepped up the attack on the Congress and its INDIA bloc allies, while the Opposition leaders hit back in equal measure.
Campaigning ended on Sunday for the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections, the run-up to which saw the Constitution and reservation issue dominating the poll discourse. With the first two phases registering a dip in voter turnout as compared to 2019, the question is whether the third phase will buck the trend.
While 94 constituencies across 12 states and Union Territories were scheduled to vote on Tuesday, the BJP has already won Surat in Gujarat unopposed, and the poll for Anantnag-Rajouri seat in Jammu and Kashmir has been deferred to May 25. However, polling in Betul in Madhya Pradesh, which was to be held in the second phase on April 26, was postponed to May 7 after the death of the BSP candidate.
In the final hours of campaigning on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP stepped up the attack on the Congress and its INDIA bloc allies, while the Opposition leaders hit back in equal measure.
Modi, who offered prayers at the Ram temple in Ayodhya and held a roadshow, addressed rallies in Uttar Pradesh where he lashed out at the “dynastic politics” of the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, saying that while their leaders work to benefit only their own families, he was building a better future for the coming generations.
Referring to himself and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, he said: “We don’t have children. We are working for your children.”
Modi also reiterated his charge that the Congress wanted to carve out a quota for its “Muslim vote bank”. “They (Congress) now want to do across the country what they did in Karnataka. They want to rob the reservation of SC/ST and OBC on the basis of religion,” he said.
PTI adds: In Telangana, addressing a rally at Nirmal under Adilabad Lok Sabha constituency, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi reiterated his charge that Modi was against reservation. “Narendra Modiji is against reservation. He wants to take away reservation from you. The biggest issue before the country is increasing reservation from 50 per cent,” he said.
Rahul claimed that the ongoing general elections was between two ideologies in which the Congress was trying to safeguard the Constitution, while the BJP-RSS combine wanted to end it and people’s rights. He said the BJP leaders have said that if their party wins the elections, they will change and finish the Constitution. “If the Constitution is finished, reservation will end,” he said, adding that the BJP wants backward classes, Dalits and Adivasis to remain backward.
The reservation issue dominated the campaign discourse in the run-up to the third phase, as the NDA and INDIA bloc levelled charges and counter-charges. The Opposition continued its pitch that the BJP wanted to win more than 400 seats so that it could make changes in the Constitution and snatch away the reservation benefits of SCs, STs and OBCs. Modi countered with the argument that the Congress, if voted to power, would divert the SC, ST and OBC quota to its “Muslim vote bank”.
The stakes are significant for the BJP and its allies, which had, in 2019, won 75 of the 93 seats going to polls on Tuesday, while the INDIA bloc parties had won only 11. Four seats had gone to the undivided Shiv Sena, two were won by independents, and one by the AIUDF.
The BJP also pounced on Sam Pitroda’s comment that the US inheritance tax was an interesting idea, alleging that the Congress would redistribute property to its “vote bank”. The Congress, on its part, continued to promise a caste census and an ‘X-ray’ of resources to deliver justice to Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs.