NEW DELHI – Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday said If Prime Minister Narendra Modi has faith in god, he should meditate at home instead of “wasting the country’s money” by travelling to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari to “show off”.

The prime minister’s meditation visit to the Rock Memorial began on Thursday, as campaigning for the seventh and last phase of the Lok Sabha elections concluded, and is expected to go on till Saturday.

“Politics and religion should never be brought together,” said Kharge while commenting on the visit. “These two should be kept separate. A man of one religion can be with you and a man of another religion can be against you. It is wrong to link religious sentiments with elections. He is going to Kanyakumari and performing drama.”

Kharge said that Modi’s “show off is only going to cause harm to the country”.

Commenting on the Lok Sabha election, the Congress president said that concerns of inflation, unemployment, the Constitution and democracy have been on the minds of the voters.

“Whatever he (Modi) may say, the people of the country have decided that they would not accept the leadership of Prime Minister Modi,” said the Congress president. “In Andhra, they [BJP] will get some [seats] but in Telangana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Congress has the advantage.”

He said the INDIA bloc will get more seats than the BJP in Uttar Pradesh too.

On Wednesday, the Congress had told the Election Commission that Modi’s meditation visit should either be deferred or not broadcast to prevent violation of the Model Code of Conduct.

The code is a set of guidelines issued by the Election Commission for candidates, political parties and governments to follow during an election. It sets guardrails for campaign events, speeches, election manifestos and other aspects of the polls.

In a complaint to the poll panel, the Opposition party said that no one is allowed to campaign directly or indirectly during the silence period. The silence period comes into effect 48 hours before the polling day.

Polling in all 13 seats of Punjab, 13 seats in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight in Bihar, six in Odisha, four in Himachal Pradesh and three seats of Jharkhand will be held on June 1.

Besides the Congress, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee had also questioned why Modi was meditating in front of a camera.

“Does anybody who meditates [do] it in front of a camera?” Banerjee asked at a rally in West Bengal’s Jadavpur constituency. “He basically wants to show his meditation to people.”