The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alone will win 370 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at his first election rally in Madhya Pradesh on Sunday, where he also predicted a complete decimation of the Congress.

Addressing a rally in the tribal-dominated Jhabua, Modi said that even opposition leaders in Parliament are now saying “abki baar 400 paar (we will cross 400 this time)” for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

“I am sure the BJP’s lotus symbol will cross the 370-mark on its own,” Modi said.

The PM said he has not come to Jhabua to campaign for the Lok Sabha elections, but as a “sevak”. “I have not come for Lok Sabha campaigning. I have come as a servant to express the gratitude to the people of MP, who are like God,” he said.

The Congress was decimated in the 2023 assembly polls and will be wiped out in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, he said.

“The people showed a mirror to the Congress in the assembly polls. The mood of the nation is similar in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls… that is why this time the big leaders of the opposition have already started saying ‘Abki Baar 400 Paar’ in 2024,” Modi said, referring to the 2023 state polls in MP where it returned to power with 163 seats in the 230-member assembly.

In the same round of polls last December, viewed as a curtain raiser for this summer’s general elections, the BJP also managed to dislodge the Congress governments in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

“Our ‘double-engine’ government is working with double speed in Madhya Pradesh,” he said, referring to the ₹7,550 crore development projects that he launched before addressing the meeting. The PM also laid the foundation stone of Tantya Mama Bhil University to be built at a cost of ₹170 crore in Khargone from Jhabua itself.

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The BJP has often used the term “double-engine” for its governments at the Centre and state levels.

Attacking the Congress, the PM said, “The Congress remembers villages, the poor and farmers only during elections… when it is in power, it indulges in loot, while out of power, it engineers divisions (in society) based on language, region and caste.”

The Congress has drowned in its own sins and the more it will make efforts to come up the further it will slide down, the PM said.

“A few leaders who were left in Congress, none of them want to take the responsibility. It is heard that there is a stampede in the Madhya Pradesh Congress these days. Congress is now stuck in the difficult situation of its sins. The more you try to get out, the more you will sink,” he said.

PM Modi asked voters to ensure polling of additional 370 votes in each booth, compared to the last elections, for the BJP to win 370 seats, out of the 543 Lok Sabha seats.

“How will you do this? You have to do only one thing from here. Find out how many votes were cast on the lotus in your polling booth in the last three elections. Write down the number of votes of the last three elections. This time 370 new votes should be added to the maximum votes received in the booth. That means we have to get 370 more votes than the previous one,” he told the gathering.

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In what could be seen as an attempt to reach out to the tribal community in the district, which shares borders with Gujarat and Rajasthan, the PM said the community is not a vote bank but the pride of the country.

“Your respect and development is Modi’s guarantee. The dreams of children and youth are Modi’s resolve. For us, not your votes, but your life matters. I started the sickle cell campaign for the lives of tribals. It is the result of our intentions that we have transformed Madhya Pradesh from a sick state to a developed state,” he said.

The BJP has for long claimed that it was the party’s government that pulled MP out of the so-called “Bimaru” states list and called it a “legacy” of the Congress.

The Bimaru acronym has often been used to refer to Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and imply that these states lagged in terms of economic growth, health care, education, and other developmental indices.

“Those who are the most deprived and most backward in the country, they are our priority. The government first makes schemes for those who were the poorest. Our government is paying special attention to modern infrastructure in MP,” said the PM.

The Centre last year launched the National Sickle Cell Anaemia Eradication Mission 2047, which aims to address the pressing health challenges posed by the sickle cell disease, particularly among the tribal population.

Sharing his resolve to improve lives of tribal girls, he said, “When I was the chief minister of Gujarat, I used to go door-to-door asking people to give me a promise that they will educate their daughters. In a temperature of 40-45°C and hot winds, I used to go to small villages in the forest of Dahod next to Jhabua to take the daughters to school by holding their fingers.”

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Notably, out of the 47 Lok Sabha seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes across the nation, six are in Madhya Pradesh, four in Gujarat and three in Rajasthan.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had won 28 out of 29 Lok Sabha seats in MP, including the six reserved for STs, and all 26 in Gujarat and 25 in Rajasthan.

Attacking the Congress further, the PM said the party never thought of tribal development or respecting them when it was in power for a long time, and treated them only as vote banks.

Then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee set up a ministry for tribal welfare, Modi added.

“The Congress did not bother about villages and remained worried about their palaces. Now, local Congress functionaries are asking senior leaders how to go about asking for votes against Modi. They are in trouble,” he said.

Congress spokesperson KK Mishra said, “Congress will contest this election with basic issues of common people that is unemployment, inflation, security of women, tribal and poor. The 2024 Lok Sabha election result will tell who will win and with how many seats. in Madhya Pradesh, dedicated Congress leaders are still fighting against the poor policies of BJP-led central and state government. Only opportunistic are running away.”