Ridiculing the Congress and its allies for fearing him, BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi said that the ruling coalition is more concerned about stopping him than strategising to win the Lok Sabha election.

Addressing a rally of the Shiv Sena-BJP-RPI combine, Modi said that the Congress has a singular agenda of “Modi roko” (stop Modi).

“They tremble when they hear Modi’s name, since they know their place after May 16,” he said.

Targeting the UPA government as “Ma bete ki sarkar (government of mother and son)”, Modi said the government shamelessly failed to deliver on its “slum free” and “employment” promises.

“The government has no respect for democratic institutions. Such is the arrogance that the family feels it is not answerable to anyone. The character of the Congress is to only fool the people,” the Gujarat chief minister said.

Modi said that 232 constituencies have voted so far and it is clear that the UPA government is on its way out.

“Polling so far has laid the foundation stone of the next government. It is the duty of those going to vote in the next phase to ensure a strong and stable government,” he said and urged people to see to it that the Congress-NCP never opened their account in the state.

“You give us a mandate for a strong government and we will ensure you a strong nation,” Modi said.

Sharing the stage with Modi for the first time, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray lauded the Gujarat chief minister as a “strong and decisive leader”.

A 20-year-old villager was arrested in Thane for allegedly raping a teenage girl for three days under the pretext of marrying her, district rural police said.

According to PSI A V Salunke of Wada police station, the accused Nagesh M Wagh was arrested on Sunday night and was charged under sections 376,363, 366-A and also sections 6 and 8 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 following a complaint by the girl.

The incident took place on April 17 when the 17-year-old girl was on her way to work in Kandivali that Wagh, who lives in the same locality offered her lift on his motorbike and took her to an isolated place.

He then allegedly raped the girl repeatedly over the next three days and then abandoned her, following which she approached the cops.

Three days before the Lok Sabha polls in the city, two men working as bouncers at a night club in a five-star hotel, allegedly associated with gangster Ravi Pujari gang, were arrested and a sophisticated carbine machine gun and a pistol were recovered from them, police said.

Acting on a tip-off that Pujari gang members were to deliver firearms to their aide in Kandivali, a trap was laid last evening when two accused – Deepak Padwal (27) and Amol Sawant (29) – were found moving suspiciously in the area, police said.

“The two were arrested by the Anti Extortion Cell and firearms recovered from them. A carbine machine gun, a pistol, three magazines and 13 live rounds were seized from the duo, who reached Kandivali to hand over the consignment,” Joint Police Commissioner (Crime) Sadanand Date said.

Although the seizure assumed significance ahead of the Lok Sabha polls to be held in the city on Thursday, the crime branch chief clarified it had nothing to do with elections.

“The two carriers, who work as bouncers with a popular night club in a five star hotel in Mumbai suburbs, wanted to deliver the firearms to their associate. There was no specific operation by these two linking to the elections,” Date said.

Investigators were alarmed to discover the carbine machine gun with the two accused as this weapon is usually used by armed forces, police said.

According to police sources, the two were given these firearms by their associate Kamal Singh Rajput (32), a bouncer in the same night club, who had been arrested from the city by Mangalore police last week in connection with a firing case in their jurisdiction.

Rajput and his colleague Dattatray Waghare had been arrested by Mangalore police from Mumbai with the help of the city crime branch.

“Padwal and Sawant were produced before a court which remanded them in police custody till April 25. We suspect that the two may have the knowledge about the places where some more firearms are concealed.

Problems arising out of deletions in electoral rolls is inevitable as there is no foolproof measure against errors, Chief Electoral Officer Maharashtra Nitin Gadre said.

“The exercise of deletions was concluded in August 2013 and names of as many as 50 lakh people were deleted. Through lot of publicity, we gave time to people to correct mistakes if any in the voter rolls.

“CDs were given to all political parties and the deleted list was published on the website. Details of the proposed deletions were also circulated to political parties. There was no secrecy in the deletions,” Gadre said.

He was responding to criticism of incidents where several people from Pune found their names were missing from the voter lists and protests were staged outside the collector’s office.

After August 2013, 40 lakh new voters were added in the summary revision. “Another 16 lakh were added after January 31, 2014 including 6.8 lakh after March nine this year. Hence, a total of 56 lakh voters have been added which includes 23 lakh first time voters,” he said.

Gadre said in Pune, 6.22 lakh names were deleted out of which 1,400 complained that their names have been mistakenly deleted.

“The scrutiny of the names is in progress and the Election Commission of India will take an appropriate decision in this regard,” he said.

In Mumbai, he said 6.5 lakh names have been deleted during revision of electoral rolls. “So far, we have not received official complaints from citizens that their names have been mistakenly deleted,” Gadre said.

He said for the first time, a massive deletion exercise was undertaken last year. We agree it is not foolproof because about 60,000 people were in the exercise to scrutinise electoral roll of eight crore. A person might not be found in the residence during one or two visits of the officials, neighbours might not know and the person may turn up after two months,” he added.