Modi trains his guns on Pawar, Patel

Rolling out the BJP Lok Sabha campaign in Maharashtra, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday declared that if voted to power, the first thing the LK Advani government would do is to probe the “wheat scam to find out who were the agents of White people in Delhi”.

“Sharad Pawar, Manmohan Singh, Madam Sonia, you’ll have to reveal who are the agents of White people in Delhi,” said Modi, referring to the controversial import of substandard quality Australian wheat, an issue that the BJP had played up in both the state and Centre to corner the union agriculture minister in 2007.

Modi’s direct assault on Pawar comes on the day when Sena Supremo Bal Thackeray sent signals of cosying up to Pawar through his Saamna editorial. Strategically, Modi chose to encash Vidarbha’s farm crisis by selling ‘Brand Gujarat’ to woo voters on civil aviation minister Praful
Patel’s home turf of Gondia.

Boasting of his government’s development model, Modi sought to pin the UPA for its all-round failures, and said: “People need to root it out.”

Modi, who’ll be the BJP’s star campaigner in Maharashtra for the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, said Gujarat has signed MoUs for investment worth Rs 12 lakh crore recently. “If Pawar and Patel sit through the entire night, they won’t figure out how many zeroes are needed to be put there,” said Modi.