File photo of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
In a frontal attack on Narendra Modi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday accused him and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of resorting to falsehood to target rivals and vitiating the atmosphere with their "politics of negativism and separatism".
The Prime Minister, who did not take the name of Mr Modi and instead referred to him as BJP leader from Gujarat and "big BJP leader", said there were "several question marks" over the Gujarat model of development which the BJP's prime ministerial candidate has been flagging in many of his election speeches.
"The BJP leader from Gujarat is always talking about the Gujarat model of development. But it is well known that several question marks were raised over the Gujarat model of development.
"The model need not work for the whole country. India is a very vast country where only one model of development could not work for all the regions," he said at the election meeting at the Wright Town stadium in Jabalpur.
Slamming the BJP, Dr Singh said it has brought down the standard of political discourse and asked the people to "think seriously" what the party, which believes in "demeaning others", will do to the country.
Taking potshots at Mr Modi, he said the Gujarat leader had made "several goof-ups in matters relating to history".
"This showed what kind of a man he is," Dr Singh said in the hard-hitting speech.
"In his zeal to malign others, a big BJP leader often resorts to falsehoods. He frequently distorts historical facts. Once in his enthusiasm to attack Congress, he misrepresented facts about a leader who is respected a lot in BJP," he said.
In its enthusiasm, BJP was only interested in leveling personal attacks on leaders from rival parties, he said.