Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a busy Monday where he visited Rajasthan’s Chittorgarh, where he laid foundation stones and launched projects worth Rs 7,000 crore, and addressed a huge crowd in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior.

Both states will hold assembly elections later this year.

After laying the foundation stone and dedicating various development projects to the nation in Chittorgarh, he addressed a public gathering, in which he launched a scathing attack on the opposition parties, especially the Congress.

Lashing out at the Congress, Modi, in a reference to the feud between the chief minister, Ashok Gehlot, and senior party leader Sachin Pilot, said the party formed the government in the state by telling lies but could not run it. While sitting, getting up, sleeping, and waking up, the chief minister was busy in saving his chair and half of the Congress was busy in removing him from the chair.

Continuing his tirade against Gehlot, the PM said, “That is why they are requesting me that their schemes should not be stopped after the formation of the BJP government. In a way he has congratulated the BJP. Thank you Gehlot ji because you have accepted defeat. If you have accepted honestly, then Modi is many times more honest than you. I assure you that the BJP government will try to make the public welfare schemes started by you even better.”

Modi then reminded the gathering of the July 2022 ghastly beheading of an Udaipur tailor named Kanahiya Lal by Islamists, who were inflamed by Lal’s support to BJP spokeswoman Nupur Sharma, who had allegedly used derogatory words against the Prophet Muhammad.

Modi emotionally said, “I am saying with a very sad heart that when it comes to crime, Rajasthan comes on top. Our Rajasthan is infamous when it comes to anarchy, riots, stone pelting. Our Rajasthan is ruined due to atrocities on women and atrocities on Dalits.” He then said, “Whatever happened in Udaipur was never imagined. Some people slit the throat of a tailor and make a video of it. Rajasthan does not betray even the enemy. The Congress government sees vote bank in that also,” adding, “The Congress has created such an image in the world of Rajasthan. It is difficult to celebrate Teej-festival peacefully, one keeps worrying about when riots will break out, when stones will be showered.”

Earlier, in Chittorgarh, Modi inaugurated several projects, including the Mehsana-Bhatinda-Gurdaspur Gas Pipeline, the HPCL LPG Plant at Abu Road, additional storage at the Ajmer Bottling Plant, IOCL, railway and road projects, tourism facilities at Nathdwara, and the permanent campus of Indian Institute of Technology, Kota.

Before addressing the event, the PM paid obeisance at the Sanwariya Seth Temple near Chittorgarh, which is dedicated to Lord Krishna and is a centre for spirituality.

Later in the afternoon, the prime minister addressed a massive crowd at the Mela Ground in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior.

During his speech, he lambasted the Congress and claimed that such parties lack vision for development, and they are only stuck in their greed for a chair (power). That’s the reason they hate any achievement that India makes towards becoming developed as a world power.

Without naming the Congress, Modi said, “Can you trust these ‘anti-development people’ who got 60 years to rule the country, but they only concentrated on playing with the emotions of the poor, dividing the society on caste and religion, carrying out blatant corruption and worshipping just one family?”

He then said what the Congress was doing in the past is doing even today as well.

“In just nine years, our government has succeeded in making India a developed nation and, from being the world’s 10th ranked economy, today we are the world’s 5th strongest economic power,” the PM asserted. “But these power-hungry people are getting stomach aches due to our achievements,” he alleged, adding, “I guarantee you that in our next term, India will become the world’s 3rd strongest economy.”

With an eye on the upcoming assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh this November, the PM said the next five years are crucial for the state. He said that during the rule of the previous Congress governments, MP was among the “BIMARU” states of the country.

“The BJP government has succeeded in making MP a developed state and it is today amongst the top 10 states of India,” he said, adding, “Our next target is to take MP amongst the top three states of the country.”

He called upon the large crowd, addressing them as his family members, to ensure that the double-engine government of the BJP is able to carry on the development works in the state and the country.

During Monday’s function, Modi virtually and digitally inaugurated and dedicated to the people of Madhya Pradesh various development projects worth Rs 19,000 crore, including the Delhi-Vadodara Expressway, griha pravesh of 2.21 lakh beneficiaries under the PM Aawas Yojana in rural areas, three Jal Jeevan Mission schemes, five road projects worth Rs 1,880 crore. He also flagged off a new train between Gwalior and Sumawali and inaugurated modern intensive care units (ICUs) in Gwalior and six other MP cities.