Launching a direct attack on Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prime ministerial candidate and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan on Monday said that Muslims vote out of fear for him in his state.
"How will they (Muslims) not vote for Modi – otherwise, wouldn't they be burnt with Tezaab (acid). Where will they go then? If they have to live in Gujarat they will have to vote in favour of Modi," Khan told media here.
"He (Modi) will turn the whole country into Gujarat," Khan said.
Addressing a rally in Lucknow on Sunday, Modi said that Uttar Pradesh had witnessed more than 150 riots in a year whereas there had been no riots in Gujarat for the past ten years.
"There have been 150 riots in Uttar Pradesh in the past one year and none in Gujarat in the past ten years. How dare they compare themselves with us," said Modi.
"Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav), is not bothered about development, but is only interested in votebank politics. Uttar Pradesh is ten times bigger than Gujarat, but only ten percent of the villages get electricity," he added.
He further said that the ministers in UP were busy talking about secularism rather than focusing on development of the state.
"Please go to the streets of Uttar Pradesh, and look at the unemployment. But the ministers are busy talking about secularism," said Modi.
"Poverty, education, and agricultural development have taken a back seat. They are deviating from the main issues in the name of secularism. The Samajwadi Party looks at you only as voters not as humans," he said.
"Today I'm happy that Netaji was forced to talk about development in his speech - this is his second defeat. There have been more than 20,000 cases of atrocities against women in one year in Uttar Pradesh, and Netaji is asking us to explain our actions," Modi said.
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