Modi is not a national leader but a Hindi belt politician: Congress leader Ugrappa

Referring to the BJP victory in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, Congress leader V.S. Ugrappa said that the election results once again proved that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was only a Hindi belt leader.

Addressing a media conference in Ballari on Monday, the former Lok Sabha member said that 41% of voters in Hindi speakers supported BJP and Mr. Modi and 55% of non-Hindi speakers opposed him in the recently-concluded Assembly elections of the four States including Telangana where Congress registered victory.

“In the Assembly elections of four States, BJP won in three and Congress in one. A close analysis of the voting pattern shows that 41% of the Hindi speakers supported BJP and Modi and 55% of non-Hindi speakers opposed them. BJP has no base in non-Hindi States. Congress and other parties are in power in these non-Hindi States. You can say that Mr. Modi is a leader of only the Hindi belt and that of entire India,” Mr. Ugrappa said.

Pointing to some surveys, Mr. Ugrappa said that Hindi speakers in the country account for 41% of the country’s population and rest of the 59% account for other languages.

“Kannada accounts for 3%, Bangla 8%, Telugu 7%, Marathi 6%, Tamil 6%, Malayalam 2%, Urdu 3%, Gujarati 4%, Odia 3% and Punjabi 2%. If you club Hindi and Gujarati people support Mr. Modi, they will be 45% of the country’s population. It means 55% of the population opposes Mr. Modi and BJP. Modi is not a national leader but a leader of Hindi speakers. Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri were the real national leaders who enjoyed the support of the entire India. Morarji Desai, India’s first non-Congress Prime Minister, successfully convinced the nine States. You can call such politicians national leaders and not people like Mr. Modi,” he said.

Mr. Ugrappa also questioned what contributions that BJP had made to the development of the country and welfare of its people by stating that Mr. Modi had not fulfilled the promises he had made during 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

“Mr. Modi had promised that he would bring back the Indian black money stashed in foreign banks and distribute it to the people of India at ₹15 lakh per head. He had promised to generate two crore jobs every year. He made many more promises and failed to fulfil them. After Mr. Modi assumed power, the country’s people lost the existing jobs, let alone generating more. Mr. Modi did nothing to the development of the country,” he said.