Kanpur: Narendra Modi told Uttar Pradesh today that not only is it imperative to “throw out the Congress Party,” but also those “hangers-on…who are covertly saving the UPA government’s skin.” He was alluding to the Samajwadi Party that rules India’s most thickly settled state.

Perhaps also to the Bahujan Samaj Party that, beside the Congress and also the SP, has pushed the BJP to the number four slot in the state that it once dominated. both the SP and also the BSP offer external support to the Congress at the Centre.

Addressing around 1.5 lakh individuals at a rally in Kanpur, Mr Modi also created a centered attack on Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who is a MP from Uttar Pradesh and is seen by many because the likely rival of Mr Modi for the post of prime minister in the 2014 general elections.

In what the Congress considers Rahul Gandhi’s bastion, UP, Mr Modi repeatedly mentioned him as “the prince,” and took him on his pet election agendas like poverty alleviation and food security. “Those born with a silver spoon cannot understand the pain of the poor,” Mr Modi said.

Earlier, as the Gujarat Chief Minister walked up to the stage, the gang chanted, “sher aya, sher aya (the tiger has arrived).”

He arrived just as former Chief Minister of UP Kalyan Singh had finished doing a little mathematics in his speech, reckoning that with Mr Modi in charge, the BJP is ready to reprise in 2014, its 1998 performance, once it had won fifty seven Lok Sabha seats within the state.

Currently the BJP has ten MPs from UP, that sends eighty MPs to the 545-member Lok Sabha and has the potential to form or break Mr Modi’s Delhi dream.

Early this year, Mr Modi’s right hand man and canny planner Amit Shah was handed the mammoth task of re-energising a moribund party in UP. each his event planning and organizational skills were on show in Kanpur today.