Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday compared the Congress to a “lollipop company” and accused it of failing to fulfill its promise of waiving farm loans in Karnataka. Modi was addressing an election campaign rally in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

“The Congress government promised to waive farmers’ loans across the country,” Modi said. “The promise was to waive loans worth Rs 6 lakh crore, but the loan exempted amounts to just Rs 60,000 crore. But Comptroller and Auditor General report data indicates that 35 lakh beneficiaries were not farmers nor did they have farm loans or were eligible as beneficiaries.”

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The prime minister told the gathering to be wary of the “Congress and its lies”.

Modi also released a commemorative postal stamp featuring the local Rajbhar community icon Raja Suheldev.

He praised the Bharatiya Janata Party-led administration in Uttar Pradesh for focusing on healthcare and medical education. “Several important steps have being taken to transform Purvanchal into a big medical hub and to strengthen the small industries of Uttar Pradesh,” Modi said. He said the government had set up the Rice Research Institute in Varanasi, cargo centres in Varanasi and Ghazipur, a fertilizer plant in Gorakhpur and the Bansagar irrigation project to boost agriculture.

PM accuses previous governments of failing to clean Ganga

Addressing a rally in his constituency Varanasi, Modi accused the previous governments of failing to rejuvenate the Ganga despite spending thousands of crores of rupees. “For maintaining the ‘nirmalta’ [cleanliness] of the Ganga, the power of money is not enough, clean intentions are also needed,” Modi said while inaugurating the One District, One Product summit. “We, with full honesty and clean intentions, have undertaken a campaign to clean river Ganga.”

Modi cited a recent report on pollution in the Ganga and said as his government’s Namami Gange campaign is moving ahead, Ganga was becoming free of pollution.