Delhi polls: Modi uses development mantra in bid to woo voters

New Delhi, Feb 4: Singing the development mantra in his last rally three days ahead of Delhi assembly polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday tried to woo voters by highlighting central welfare schemes and trashed the opinion polls which gave an edge to AAP, saying BJP will get majority.

Attacking BJP's main rival AAP on recent allegations of "dubious" donations, Modi said he was asked by his friends whether he has also given donation to AAP and when he got it checked, "I was surprised to know that even Mahatma Gandhi and (US President Barack) Obama have donated to them."

"What kind of people are they (AAP)? In public life there should not be any place for such lies," the Prime Minister, who has been holding rallies for three consecutive days in Delhi, targetted AAP without naming it.

Trashing opinion polls which have predicted majority for AAP, he asked people not to get swayed by these "lies" and said last time during last assembly elections they (AAP) claimed that they will win more 50 seats but could not even manage the highest tally.

"Even when I contested from Varanasi in Lok Sabha, they (surveys) said Modi will lose by three lakh votes. I don't know who (pollsters) are they," Modi said, adding he was wondering how someone who could not win his own Lok Sabha seat was being projected as someone big, in an apparent reference to AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal.

Talking about various welfare schemes undertaken by his government to help the poor, Modi, during the rally in South Delhi's Ambedkar Nagar, said his politics was all about development without which no state can progress.

"My politics have only one style, only one mantra and only one focus and that is development. And it means that there should be change in the lives of the poor people. Their children should get education, their parents should get medicine. And there should be concrete house in place of jhuggis," he said.

He referred to 'Jandhan' and direct benefit transfer for gas cylinder subsidy as pro-poor measures taken by his government. In an apparent attack on Congress, he said his was neither a "ghotala sarkar (government of scam)" nor was a government run with the help of "ghotalebaaz (scamsters)".

PTI