Mounting an attack on the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday demanded that the party should explain to people why it has stopped raising the ‘Ambani-Adani’ issue as its ‘Shehzada’ used to do for the past five years and asked if it has struck a ‘deal’.

Have “tempo loads of notes (money)” reached the Congress that it has stopped targeting “Ambani-Adani’,” Modi said while addressing an election rally at Vemulawada in Telangana.

“Ever since elections have been announced, these people (Congress) have stopped abusing Ambani-Adani. I want to ask from Telangana soil, let the Shehzada announce, how much has been lifted from Ambani-Adani. Has tempo loads of notes (currency) reached the Congress? What deal has been arrived at, that abusing Ambani-Adani has stopped overnight,” he asked.

“Certainly something is fishy. For five years, (they) abused Adani-Ambani and it stopped overnight. It means you have received some tempo loads of ‘chori ka maal’ (loot). You have to answer the nation,” the Prime Minister said.

The Congress has been attacking the Modi government, accusing the Prime Minister of favouring the top five industrialists in the country, including Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani.

Addressing the rally after the third phase of general elections, Modi also said the phase has blown the third ‘fuse’ of Congress and its INDI Alliance.

He added four phases of polling are left and with the blessings of the people, the BJP and NDA were marching toward victory.

Attacking the Congress and K Chandrasekhar Rao-led BRS in Telangana, Modi said while the BJP believes in the ‘nation first’ principle, for the two parties it is ‘family first’.

The BRS and Congress openly criticise each other on corruption, but it is a common factor between these parties, he charged.

Taking a veiled swipe at Rahul Gandhi and Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, he said there is a lot of discussion up to Delhi on the “double R (RR)” tax in the state. Around 450,000 displaced Palestinians already are sheltering in Muwasi. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said it has been providing them with aid. But conditions are squalid, with few sanitation facilities in the largely rural area, forcing families to dig private latrines.

The evacuation order left Palestinians in Rafah wrestling with having to uproot their families once again for an unknown fate, exhausted after months living in sprawling tent camps or crammed into schools or other shelters in and around the city. Israeli airstrikes on Rafah early Monday killed 22 people, including children and two infants.

Mohammed Jindiyah said that at the beginning of the war, he tried to hold out in his home in northern Gaza under heavy bombardment before fleeing to Rafah.

He is complying with Israel’s evacuation order this time, but was unsure whether to move to Muwasi or elsewhere.

“We are 12 families, and we don’t know where to go. There is no safe area in Gaza,” he said.

Sahar Abu Nahel, who fled to Rafah with 20 family members, including her children and grandchildren, wiped tears from her cheeks, despairing at a new move.

“I have no money or anything. I am seriously tired, as are the children,” she said. “Maybe it’s more honorable for us to die. We are being humiliated.”

Advertisement | KRC times