The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said on Tuesday prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s election campaign has been the most extensive mass outreach programme in the electoral history of the world.

BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi said Modi would have undertaken 5,827 public events, including rallies, interviews to print and television media, chai pe charcha meetings, 3D meetings, etc, from his first rally in Rewari in Haryana on September 15, 2013, to May 10 — the last day of campaigning for the current Lok Sabha elections. Lekhi said Modi had travelled 300,000 km across India in this duration.

According to Lekhi, the BJP campaign also established the party as a strong force in areas in the south and northeast where it has traditionally been weaker, and has won important allies across India. She said the BJP has dented the monopoly of the Left and Trinamool Congress in West Bengal and of the United Democratic Front and the Left Democratic Front in Kerala “which had never happened in the past”. In Tamil Nadu, Lekhi claimed the BJP and five parties’ pre-poll alliance has challenged the duopoly of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

MODI MAGIC

Narendra Modi’s outreach from September 15, 2013 to May 10, 2014 5,827 public programmes, covering 25 states

Modi travelled 300,000 km for all the public programmes

38 preparatory mega rallies across 21 states from the first in Rewari on September 15, 2013

241 rallies in Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi for Assembly elections

196 Bharat Vijay rallies from March 26 to May 10

‘Chai pe charcha’ at 4,000 locations

3D speeches at 1,350 places

The party has used technology and innovation, particularly for its ‘chai pe charcha’ programmes and Modi’s 3D speeches, which has been unprecedented, said Lekhi. She added Modi has also given dozens of interviews to print and electronic media.

To the Congress leadership’s charge that Modi represented fascism, the BJP spokesperson accused former PM Indira Gandhi of practicing fascism during the Emergency in 1975 and later Rajiv Gandhi when he tried to enact an anti-defamation Bill to rein in the media. She said Indira muzzled the media during the Emergency while Rajiv attempted to do the same.

Lekhi went on to claim that Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s father was part of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s army, and fought in the Second World War alongside “Hitler’s” Wehrmacht, the German unified armed force from 1939 to 1945.