Amaravati: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday took potshots at Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, saying the latter was trying to keep the Congress party alive by "placing it on a ventilator."
Singh advised the Telugu Desam Party supremo to look into Congress history before "falling into its trap."
"The Congress is not going to survive, Chandrababu. The UPA has now become a non-performing asset," Singh said.
The Union Home minister was addressing a public meeting after laying the foundation stone for BJPs Andhra Pradesh headquarters at Reddipalem near Guntur here.
"The Congress is taking its last breath. Chandrababu Naidu thinks he can keep it alive for a while by placing it on a ventilator. But the Congress is not going to survive," Singh asserted, indirectly referring to the TDPs efforts to tie-up with the Congress.
"Whoever fell into its (Congress) trap has gone," he remarked.
The veteran BJP leader said the opposition parties in the country now had only one agenda of stopping Narendra Modi from retaining power (in 2019).
The opposition was unable to digest Modi's popularity.
"The Prime Minister has been relentlessly working for the uplift of the villages, the poor, the farmers and the marginalized sections of the society.
It is because of Narendra Modi that India's status in the world has reached a new high. Hence, the opposition is seeking to stop him (from becoming PM again)," Singh said.
Singh also flayed congress president Rahul Gandhi for his "personal attacks" on the prime minister.
"The prime minister does not belong to any party. He is an institution. We have to respect the prime minister. We may criticise his policies but one should not indulge in personal attack," he noted.
Such personal attacks do not give any credit to the opposition party, nor were it good for democracy, Singh added.
He said coalition dharma was not a "compulsion" but a political "commitment" for the BJP.
It was the first time in the country's history that a non-Congress party secured power at the Centre with absolute majority in 2014, he said.
And, it was only the BJP that ran coalition governments successfully, Singh pointed out, referring to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government from 1999-2004.
It was a Telugu 'bidda' (Telugu son), P V Narasimha Rao who successfully ran a coalition government (1991-96) for full five years, Singh said.
Congress might have forgotten former prime ministers like P V Narasimha Rao and Lal Bahadur Shastri but the BJP and the nation would not forget them, he said.
"For us national interests are always above political interests. So we remember those former prime ministers who served the country well. The Congress remembers only those former PMs who had suffixes like Nehru and Gandhi.
If any party placed political interests above national interests, it is the Congress," Singh said.
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