Keep slinging mud, lotus will bloom more: PM to Opposition

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a fresh broadside against the opposition on Thursday, saying their "keechad" (dirt) of allegations will only help the lotus bloom more and asserting he alone outweighs all who had to take turns to shout slogans to oppose him.

Thumping his chest, Modi declared that he lives for the country and wants to do something for the country, which has rattled the opposition parties and they are playing political games just to save themselves. "Desh dekh raha hai, ek akela kitno ko bhari padh raha hai (the country is watching how one person has outweighed so many)," he said as the opposition members kept shouting "Modi-Adani, bhai-bhai".

Unperturbed by the jeering, Modi finished his 90-minute speech in reply to a debate on a motion thanking the President for her address to a joint sitting of Parliament, and listed various achievements of his government. With members of the treasury benches chanting "Modi-Modi", he pointed at the opposition MPs who had gathered in the Well of the House in a bid to shout him down and said, "Naare bolne ke liye bhi unko badal karna padhta hai (they have to take turns even to shout slogans)."

"Ek conviction ke karan chala hoon, desh ke liye jeeta hoon, desh ke liye kuch karne ke liye nikla hoon (I live for the country and have embarked with the conviction to serve the nation)," he said, adding his political opponents are playing games as they do not have the courage to take him on. The opposition, he said, is resorting to this to save themselves. Replying to the Congress charge that the BJP was ignoring Jawaharlal Nehru's efforts in nation building after Independence, Modi retorted that if the first prime minister was so great, why have his scions never used his surname.

As he rose to speak, opposition MPs, some holding placards, rushed into the Well shouting slogans against the prime minister and seeking a joint parliamentary committee probe into allegations levelled by the US short-seller Hindenburg Research against tycoon Gautam Adani.

Hitting back, Modi said, "Jitna keechad uchaloge, kamal utna hee zyada khilega (the more dirt you fling, the bigger the kamal - the election symbol of BJP - will bloom)." "Keechad unke pass tha, mere pass gulal. Jo jis ke pass tha, usne diya uchal," Modi quoted Manik Verma's poem in response to the allegations opposition parties levelled on him and his government.

Roughly translated, it means they had dirt and I had 'gulal', whosoever had whatever they flung in the air. Opposition parties used the debate on the motion to attack the government for Adani group's phenomenal rise during the last few years. In his reply, Modi accused the Congress of adopting only "tokenism" in solving problems the country faced and said it was bothered only about its political ambitions and not the welfare of the nation. "We don't believe in tokenism. We have chosen the path of hardwork in taking the country forward," he said.