The Congress ship is sinking: Narendra Modi

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday sternly criticised the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre, saying it has disappointed people of the country with a series of scams coming to light and by ignoring burning issues such as price hike.

"This Congress-led UPA government has disappointed people of the country by series of scams and failure of checking corruption and price hike," Modi said while addressing party members on the concluding session of two-day state executive meeting held in Rajkot.

"Assembly elections are likely to be held in Gujarat by year end and people of the state have to decide to choose between Bharatiya Janata Party's politics of development and Congress's caste-based politics," Modi said.

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"We have won in 2002, 2007 and in 2012 assembly elections, the condition is more favourable for BJP compared to 2002 and 2007 as people of the country are disappointed with Congress rule at the Centre," Modi said.

Modi's statements come amid large scale dissidents and internal bickering in the state BJP on the issue of exit of Sanjay Joshi from the party and revolt by former Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel and his supporters.

The two-day state executive meeting was held in Rajkot, home town of Keshubhai, to finalise BJP's poll strategy for the state Assembly elections scheduled to be held later this year, which the party likes to term as 'Mission 2012'.

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On the second day of the meeting, posters supporting Joshi and apparently targetting Modi had appeared around the meeting venue. Some of the dissident workers also protested wearing masks of Joshi and carrying placards, at about 200 metres from the venue, and they were detained by the police.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been misguiding people of the country by claiming to have achieved 7 per cent GDP growth, which has come down to 5 per cent this quarter, Modi said, adding that the government in Delhi does not know that there was a "hole in the ship".

Modi said that "Congress ship is sinking" as it has hurt and miscalculated human power.

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He said there were a couple of reasons for the failure of the UPA government. As the GDP reduced and inflation increased, the government was not concerned about it, and secondly, the Indian rupee was going down day by day.

"Our Indian rupee is going down and down against dollar and Indian reputation has gone down in international market," Modi said and added that "people of the country want to know why Indian rupee has became weak".

"There is no chance for Congress to survive," Modi said and asked how the party which is struggling can give stability to the nation.

He claimed that BJP is the only party in the country which believes in peace, 'sadbhavna' and unity and practices politics of development and not caste-based politics.

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