Situation prior to ’14 was same as Lanka’s: PM

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, April 22

The situation in India prior to 2014 was similar to that prevailing in Sri Lanka these days, where a series of blasts on Easter Sunday claimed 290 lives, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at a rally in Nashik today.

“Blasts occurred in Sri Lanka yesterday. Hundreds of people were killed on the auspicious occasion of Easter. People were killed while they were praying to their God..... Wasn’t the situation similar to that in India before 2014? There were bomb blasts in Mumbai, Pune, Gujarat.....,” the PM said while the audience mobilised by the BJP chanted “Modi, Modi”.

Attacking the Congress and the NCP, the PM said the two parties only conducted condolence meetings and went crying around the world when Pakistan carried out terror attacks in India.

“After this Chowkidar came to power, we attacked the terror factories in Pakistan. Now, terrorism is limited to only a few places in Jammu and Kashmir. Our security forces are killing terrorists every day,” Modi said.

He went on to say that he could not sit still like his predecessor after a terror attack. “Would you have forgiven me if I had behaved like Manmohan Singh did after the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai?” he said.

Modi, who began his address in Marathi before switching to Hindi, went on to claim that the BJP was ahead in the first two phases of the elections that had been completed so far.

He went on to say that the government was concerned about the problems of agriculturists in the region. “It is working on reducing the cost of transporting and storing onions. We will soon put an end to middlemen who exploit farmers and consumers,” he said. In Udaipur, too, Monday said his government had taken strong action against terrorism and that the Congress did not understand the importance of the issue because of its “narrow mindset”. “ Modi is hitting them (terrorists) in their homes,” he said.