In his first election rally in Maharashtra, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a scathing attack on the Congress, calling the arch-rival an anti-national force that conspired to divide communities and instigate them to fight against each other. He gave the slogan ‘ek hai toh safe hai’ (united we are safe) to stand guard against the Congress’s alleged plot.

Modi kicked off the campaign on Friday in Dhule, a tribal-dominated Lok Sabha segment where the BJP had lost by a slender margin. In his introductory remarks, Dy CM Devendra Fadnavis blamed the Dhule defeat on ‘vote jihad’ in the Muslim-dominated Malegaon Assembly constituency. Later in the day, Modi addressed a rally in Nashik, which has a strong presence of the other backward classes (OBCs) and is considered BJP’s traditional vote bank.