Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday alleged that “urban Naxals” are running the Congress party.

He made the statement at a Bharatiya Janata Party rally in Bhopal. Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh are expected to be held later this year.

“The Congress is bankrupt now, [it] has now handed over contracts to others,” Modi said. “The Congress is now like a company that has outsourced its slogans and policies. It has given its contracts to some urban Naxals. Urban Naxals are the ones running the show in the Congress. This is what every Congress worker feels on the ground.”

The term “urban Naxals” was first used by ministers of the Union government and Bharatiya Janata Party leaders after several activists and academicians were arrested in the Elgar Parishad case in 2018. Since then, the term has often been used for dissidents of the Modi-led government.

In Monday’s address, the prime minister also accused the Opposition of supporting the women’s reservation bill only due to “political compulsions”.

The women’s reservation bill was passed unanimously by the Parliament during a Special Session last week. The bill reserves one-third of the seats in Lok Sabha and state Assemblies for women. The provision will also be applicable as a sub-quota within the seats already reserved for the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe categories. However, it has is no such provision for the Other Backward Classes.

Notably, the reservation for women in Lok Sabha and state Assemblies will be effective only after a census is conducted, followed by a delimitation exercise or the redrawing of boundaries to the constituencies. A Census was slated to be conducted in 2021, but has been delayed three times since then.

“The Congress and its new ‘ghamandiya’ alliance had a very difficult time supporting this bill,” the prime minister alleged, referring to the Opposition’s INDIA alliance. “The people in their alliance are the ones who prevented this law for 20 years.”

The prime minister also said that this is a crucial time to develop Madhya Pradesh and to make India a developed country.

“If a dynasty-oriented party like the Congress, with a history of thousands of crores in scams, and parties that indulge in vote-bank politics and appeasement, get even a slight chance during this crucial time, it will cause significant damage to Madhya Pradesh,” he claimed.