Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that the single agenda of the opposition parties was to oppose him and described the Congress and the Left parties as “rivals” in Kerala but “BFF (best friends forever) elsewhere”.

Addressing a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) public meeting at the Central Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram marking the conclusion of the ‘padayatra’ undertaken by state BJP chief K Surendran, Modi expressed hope that Kerala will never stand with those who have such a negative perspective towards the country’s development.

“The opposition has already conceded defeat in the 2024 elections. They don’t have a roadmap for the country’s development. They have a single agenda – to abuse Modi. I am sure that Kerala and its people will never stand with those who have such a negative outlook. Kerala will give blessings to the BJP and NDA and contribute to nation-building,” said the PM, stressing that the party will get double-digit seats in the state this time.

“The Congress and the Communists pretend to be rivals in Kerala. But outside the state, they are best friends forever (BFFs). Within the INDI alliance, they sit next to each other and have chai, samosas and biscuits. They use one language in Thiruvananthapuram and speak another in the rest of the country. The people of Kerala will give them a fitting answer for this politics of cheating,” the PM said.

“There is a different level of enthusiasm among the people of Kerala. In 2019, the people of Kerala voted for BJP-NDA in double digits (vote share), in 2024 the people of Kerala will give double-digit seats to us. In 2019, the country was giving slogans of ‘Phir ek baar Modi Sarkar’, in 2024, everyone is saying ‘Abki baar, 400 paar,” he added.

The Prime Minister said the BJP has never seen any Indian state from the perspective of a vote-bank. “Even when the BJP was not strong in Kerala, even then we worked day in and day out to empower Kerala. Over the past 10 years, the benefits of development have been reaped by Kerala as much as done by the BJP-ruled states,” Modi said.

Modi also alleged ‘non-cooperation’ from the state government and said despite that Kerala has remained top priority for the BJP-led Centre.

“We declared that all the exams for central government jobs be conducted in regional languages including Malayalam. We have linked India to the rest of the world through traditional medicine methods like Ayurveda. Over 1.5 crore people in Kerala are getting benefits of the free ration scheme of the central government. Free treatment worth ₹5,500 crore has been given to people here through the Ayushman Bharat scheme. 36 lakh people have got piped water through the Jal Jeevan Mission. Over 40 lakh farmers have got direct aid in the form of PM Kisan scheme. Over 50 lakh mudra loans were disbursed for the youth. Work is being done to expand infrastructure through expansion of national highways and new Vande Bharat trains,” he stated.

The PM also unveiled the names of the four astronaut-designates who will be part of the country’s maiden human space flight mission Gaganyaan and inaugurated space infrastructure projects worth ₹1,800 crore at an event at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram.