People will vote to punish Congress: Narendra Modi

BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi today said people will "punish" Congress in the Lok Sabha polls.

"People will vote not only for bringing a change, but also to punish the Delhi government (UPA). They (UPA government) have ruined the country in the past decade. People are in a mood to punish Congress," Modi told a huge rally of tribals at Kondagaon district headquarters in the insurgency-hit Bastar region of Chhattisgarh.

The UPA government has broken every record on corruption, he said. "Jal, sthal and nabh (water, land and sky), wherever they got chance, they indulged in corruption," he said.

Referring to former Prime Minister, late Rajiv Gandhi's statement that of the one rupee given by the Centre only 15 paise reach the end-beneficiary, Modi said even at that time Congress was in power from Centre to the village-level.

"What was this 'hand' which turned a rupee into 15 paise? Now the people need a government which can ensure that a full 100 paise reach the grassroots," he said.

"Around 40 per cent of tribals in the country live in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan which have BJP governments, and everybody knows that only the governments in these states are working for the development and uplift of tribals," he said, adding Congress treated tribals only as a vote bank.

A separate ministry to promote development of tribal regions was formed only when Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government came to power, he said.

Modi also appealed to the Naxals to give up violence. The rebels should give up guns for agricultural tools and pens, so they can serve the society, he said.

Meanwhile, hours before Modi arrived, Naxals set fire to 14 trucks and a JCB machine parked at the loading bay of the Essar steel at Kirandaul in Dantewada district this afternoon.