Stalin targets PM Modi for 'silence' over CAG report, says BJP must be trounced in 2024

DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Saturday (September 23) hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet colleagues for not responding to the “irregularities” flagged by the CAG report and said the BJP must be decimated in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

He urged the people to unite to put an end to the saffron party’s “communal, divisive, authoritarian, and corporate-driven politics”. Stalin questioned PM Modi on CAG report in his second episode of “Speaking for India” podcast on Saturday.

“I ask Modi, who accuses INDIA of being an alliance of corrupt people; the CAG report exposes the corruption in your rule. Have you read what the report says? Did you discuss this in the special session? Did you even answer?”

Five Cs of BJP govt

The podcast was titled, “The CAG report flagging Rs 7.5 lakh crore irregularities and Prime Minister's silence”. The DMK chief alleged the BJP government is made of “five Cs, which are communalism, corruption, corporate capitalism, cheating and character assassination”. Though the BJP has managed to hide it all through propaganda and advertisements, the INDIA coalition’s leaders are now unmasking BJP.

“We are not saying this for politics. The CAG report proves that we have been sharing factual insights based on real data.” Citing the CAG report, from the Ayodhya development project to the Ayushman Bharat scheme, Stalin alleged irregularities to the tune of Rs 7.5 lakh crore.

“So far neither the prime minister nor the Union ministers concerned have responded to this. They cannot respond either. That's the reason why Modi takes on different kinds of politics to divert people.” The people of the country have realised that Modi is working “against” the poor, the downtrodden, the backward classes, the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes, he alleged.

Hence, in the 2024 elections, the BJP must be defeated in total and people must unite to put an end to the saffron party’s “communal, divisive, authoritarian, and corporate-driven politics”. Elaborating on CAG report, Stalin said as regards the Ayodhya project, it has shown that the BJP is a “corrupt” party.

“They name all projects using words that cannot even be pronounced by the common people and it is done so that no one would be able to figure out what is really going on. In the Swadesh Darshan project, the CAG has found several irregularities worth millions, revealing violations in the contracts being offered.”

Building false image

“As we often say, the BJP builds a false image through advertising. Do you know what they have done for those ads? The funds allocated from 2017 to 2021 in various pension schemes of the Union government have been utilised for advertisements of the Union government and it has been exposed that irregularities have been committed.”

The CAG inspected only five toll plazas in the five southern states and observed that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had collected a staggering Rs 132.05 crore from motorists in violation of rules and regulations, he alleged. “In all of India, there are numerous toll plazas; imagine how many billion rupees are being illegally collected as toll fees at these toll plazas operating outside the law,” he added.

“In 2015, they launched the 'Bharatmala' project to connect all the roads across the country. For every kilometre, the estimated cost is Rs 15.37 crore, but they signed contracts for Rs 32.17 crore per km. In these eight years, only 13,000 km of roads have been laid. Not even 40 per cent of the work has been completed. Similarly, there have been irregularities in the Dwarka Expressway project and the Bharatmala Pariyojana-1 project,” alleged the chief minister.

“Under the Ayushman Bharat Scheme, insurance claims have been made through false claims raised in the name of deceased people.” In 2014, Modi sought 60 months to make India a developed nation and though the people gave him one more term, the DMK chief sought to know if that promise has been fulfilled.

People should not be “deceived” in 2024, the way they were hoodwinked by the BJP in 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls and that is the reason for starting the podcast series, the DMK chief said.

(With agency inputs)