Ratlam/Indore: Addressing a rally at Ratlam in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday once again described infiltrators as “termites” and promised to drive them out.

The BJP president mocked Manmohan Singh, saying the former prime minister used to read out speeches handed to him by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on foreign tours. "(Former prime minister) Lal Bahadur Shastri had given the slogan 'Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan'. While you (farmers) feed the people, they (soldiers) guard our borders. But infiltrators are like termites who eat away at the country's security. They need to be removed," Shah said.

Forty lakh people were excluded from the final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and all those living illegally in the country would be evicted, Shah said. "We will drive out each and every infiltrator. The BJP will not allow a single infiltrator to stay. For us, vote bank is not important, the country's security is," Shah said.

Asking people to vote for the BJP, he said, “We assure you that we will drive infiltrators out of the country because we do not do vote-bank politics. Country's security is of paramount importance for us.”

In Indore, sounding the poll bugle in Madhya Pradesh, Shah asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi to give an account of work done by "four generations" of his family instead of questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi's performance.

Speaking at a convention of party workers at Dussehra Maidan later, Shah said, "Rahul Gandhi has been going around Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, asking the prime minister what his government has done in last four and a half years. We do not need to answer you. But the people of the country are asking you to give the account of (work done by) your four generations," he added.

Solidarity with soldiers

Seizing the opportunity to voice his party’s support for the soldiers, Shah said successive Congress governments failed to fulfil the 40-year-old demand of One Rank-One Pension, while the Modi government implemented the scheme and gave a benefit worth Rs 10,000 crore to retired soldiers.

Shah revived BJP’s old plank of UPA chairperson and Rahul’s mother Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin by saying, "Rahul can't see the importance of surgical strikes, because he has Italian spectacles on his eyes."

"Your governments did not provide an adequate price for food grains to farmers. Farmers were demanding this for the last 70 years," the BJP president said, adding, "The Modi government fulfilled the demand of fixing the MSP (Minimum Support Price) of rabi and kharif crops at one-and-a-half times the cost."

Shah reiterated the BJP’s “firm resolve” to drive out Bangladeshis and Rohingyas from the country in his Indore speech.

Campaign through mass contact

Shah launched the state Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) mass contact campaign in the Malwa-Nimad region of the poll-bound state from here on Saturday ahead of the November 28 Assembly elections. The programme has been named “Maha Jansampark Abhiyan”.

Shah garlanded a statue of Ahilyabai Holkar, a former queen of the kingdom of Malwa, in front of the historic Rajwada Palace of the erstwhile Holkar dynasty. 

Shah offered prayers at a Mahalaxmi temple located in the vicinity.

The BJP chief launched the campaign from a famous paan (betel) shop in Rajwada and its owner offered a paan to Shah.

Standing on the footboard of his vehicle, Shah greeted the people gathered in the area and then travelled from Rajwada Palace to Krishnapura Chhatri, covering a distance of about half-a-kilometre.

Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, who is the BJP MP from Indore, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and other senior party leaders accompanied Shah.

The mass contact programme will cover the Malwa-Nimar region of western Madhya Pradesh, an area considered a BJP bastion.
The BJP has been in power in Madhya Pradesh since 2003.