Modi attacks PM, Sonia; says LS polls all about decisive PM

Launching a frontal attack against the Congress top brass including Manmohan Singh, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra Modi on Thursday took swipes at him over a book written by his former aide and said the current Lok Sabha polls was all about a "decisive" prime minister.

"This election is for a decisive and accountable prime minister. A prime minister who has a voice in his own government," he said at an election rally in Erode.

The BJP prime ministerial candidate's remark is an obvious dig at Singh in the wake of a book by his former media adviser Sanjaya Baru where he had claimed that the prime minister had been "defanged" by Congress in his second term with party President Sonia Gandhi deciding on key appointments to Cabinet and PMO as he seemed to "surrender" to her and UPA partners.

Sharpening his attack against the UPA government, Modi called it a "nikam" (weak) and sleeping government and derided it for "not delivering" anything worthwhile for the people despite being in power for 60 years.

"You gave 60 years to Congress. You give me sixty months. I will change your destiny," he said at a rally in Kanyakumari, considered a Congress bastion, winding up his two-day campaign tour of Tamil Nadu during which he crisscrossed the state addressing six meetings.

Taking a dig at UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi over her remark in Kanyakumari on Thursday that UPA Government was in the forefront in protecting Tamil Nadu fishermen, he charged her with doing little to solve the fishermen issue.

When a strong government at the Centre was the need of the hour to tackle harassment of Indian fishermen from Gujarat and Tamil Nadu by Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively, the UPA Government was "sleeping", he said.

On this vexed issue, Centre and Tamil Nadu government were only involved in blamegame but were not working to solve it, he said apparently referring to Gandhi's remarks that it took "considerable time and efforts" by the Centre to get the state government's nod for the fishermen-level talks in January.

"Madam (Sonia Gandhi) blames Amma (J Jayalalithaa), Amma blames Madam. But fishermen are getting killed. Nobody is taking any interest about their plight," he said in the coastal district of Kanyakumari.