PM Modi warns people against ‘lal topiwalas’ at Gorakhpur rally

Shubhadeep Choudhury
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 7

Launching a sharp attack on the Samajwadi Party (SP), BJP’s main political rival in Uttar Pradesh where assembly elections are due in coming February, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday warned people against “lal topiwalas” (people with red topi).

“Lal topiwalas” sound the red alert for Uttar Pradesh, Modi said.

Also read: Red cap will oust BJP from power in UP: Akhilesh

Modi was addressing a rally at Gorakhpur after inaugurating three projects from there with the help of remote control.  

The projects — a fertiliser plant, an AIIMS and the new building of Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC) of ICMR –will cost the exchequer about Rs 9,600 crore.

Targeting Akhilesh Yadav, former UP chief minister and SP leader, who dons a red Gandhi topi during his public appearances, Modi said the people of UP are aware that “lal topiwalas are only interested in cars flashing red beacons”.

Without naming the SP or Akhislesh, Modi said “lal topiwalas” discarded the ideologies of Ram Manohar Lohia and Jai Prakash Narayan long back.

“They are not bothered about the problems of common people. Lal topiwalas want power so that they can indulge in scams, load their safes with cash and valuables, carry out illegal encroachments and allow the mafia to have a free run,” Modi said.

“Lal topiwalas want to constitute the government to shower generosity on terrorists and release them from prisons,” Modi added.

“Please remember that lal topiwalas are like red alert for UP – they are like the ringing of danger bells,” the PM said evoking loud cheer from the crowd.

The prime minister said that sugarcane farmers of UP would find it hard to forget the trouble they were made to undergo by the previous SP government. Payments for sugarcane used to be made in instalments and there used to be big time gaps between each payment, the prime minister said.

“People of Purvanchal and other parts of UP are aware how sugar mills used to play truant and there used to be proliferation of scams,” the PM said.

The Gorakhpur Fertiliser Plant, inaugurated by Modi today, was lying shut for the last 30 years. It has been revived and built at a cost of around Rs 8,600 crore under Hindustan Urvarak & Rasayan Limited (HURL), a joint venture of National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), Coal India Limited, Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Fertilizer Corporation of India and Hindustan Fertilizer Corporation Limited.

Besides providing fertilizer to the farmers of the area and becoming a source of employment and income for the local people, the plant will also take care of requirement of other states in the neighbourhood such as Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha, Modi said.

Similar plants are also coming up in four other locations in the country, Modi said and added that when all five new plants would become operational, an additional 60 lakh tonnes of urea would be produced in the country. The country would be spared importing urea worth thousands of crores of rupees from abroad as a result of this, Modi said.

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