Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s scams were “being unearthed from land, air and water”. Speaking at a rally in Sagar city in Madhya Pradesh, Modi targeted Gandhi for his alleged association with UK firm Backops.

Last week, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a notice to Gandhi based on a complaint filed by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Subramanian Swamy about his alleged British citizenship. Swamy cited documents of Backops Limited registered in the United Kingdom in 2003, of which Gandhi was one of the directors and secretary. Swamy’s complaint claimed that the company’s annual returns filed in 2005 and 2006 showed Gandhi’s nationality as British. Swamy claimed that an application for the company’s dissolution filed in 2009 also mentioned Gandhi’s nationality as British.

Modi alleged Gandhi owned Backops which was shut in 2009. “But in 2011, a partner in the company got a submarine deal contract,” he said. “The government was of the Congress. How did the Backops partner get the deal, what was his experience in defence contract?”

Modi said the more Gandhi targets him, the more lotus (the BJP’s party symbol) will bloom. “The ‘naamdar’ in an interview mentioned that his aim was to malign my image,” said Modi. “But more the mud he throws at me, better the lotus will bloom.”

The prime minister said the country was deprived of basic amenities because of Congress’ “criminal apathy”. “Had the Congress remained in power, I am confident that basic amenities would have alluded the country for another 100 years,” he added.

‘For vikaspanthi BJP, priority is welfare of people’

Addressing a rally in Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh, Modi said since Independence, there have been four types of governance, parties and political culture. “Naampanthi’ are those who only indulge in chanting the names of the members of a family,” he said in a veiled reference to the Congress. “Vaampanthi are those who try to foist foreign policies on India. Daam and damanpathi are those who rule using money and muscle power and for the vikaspanthi, the priority is the welfare and development of the 130 crore people of the country”.

Modi accused the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party of making people fight against each other in the name of caste. “For a long time, I had been a chief minister of a prosperous state like Gujarat and for the last five years, you had given me the task of ‘pradhan sevak’,” he said. “Eighteen years is a long time. Has there been a single taint on this person? Is there any discussion on my property, farmhouse, bungalow in any foreign country, anything that I have done for my family, pushed ahead my brothers and nephews? What else does the country need?”

Amit Shah says Rahul Gandhi remembers poor only during polls

BJP President Amit Shah on Sunday said there was no comparison between Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Addressing a rally in Sonipat, Shah said the Congress chief remembered the poor when elections are round the corner while Modi work non-stop to bring a change. This was Shah’s first rally in Haryana.

“When mercury soars in the country during summers, Rahul Baba goes for foreign vacations,” Shah said. “He is young and a bachelor, we have no objection to his vacations, but he goes to undisclosed locations and even his mother keeps searching for him. As against him here is a leader [Modi] who has worked for the past 20 years without taking a day off.”

The BJP chief also attacked Bhupinder Hooda, who is the Congress candidate from Sonipat, and former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala. “One is on bail, the other one is in jail,” he said. Hooda is named accused in several cases while Chautala is in jail in connection with a teachers’ recruitment scam. “We gave a leader in Manohar Lal Khattar, who has a clean image,” Shah said. “Under his regime, there is no hooliganism, no corruption and Haryana has made an all-round progress.”