Lucknow, Feb. 24: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today told the people of Gonda, Uttar Pradesh, not to vote for those helping Pakistani spies and terrorists.

He did not name any person or party but later said that not a single Samajwadi Party or Bahujan Samaj Party candidate should win during this Assembly election.

"Gonda (district) borders Nepal," Modi told an election rally in Gonda town, lapsing into geographical error.

"You must have seen that a railway accident took place in Kanpur and some people were arrested. Hundreds of passengers were killed. The police have found that it was a conspiracy by people sitting on the other side of the border."

The Indore-Rajendranagar Express was derailed near Pukhrayan station on the Kanpur-Jhansi route on November 20 last year, leaving 150 people dead.

"Brothers and sisters, if our enemies on that side of the border are trying to conduct their activities, the people of Gonda should be more alert than others," Modi said.

"Can my Gonda be safe if those who help these people are elected? Can the country be safe if Gonda is unsafe?"

Gonda indeed had a border with Nepal till 1997 --- the part of the frontier closest to Ayodhya --- before it's northern parts were hived off as a separate district, Balrampur, which now borders Nepal.

It's possible Modi was remembering Gonda from the days of the Ayodhya movement of the early 1990s when, after a few terror attacks in the temple town, central agencies had identified the then Gonda-Nepal border as "porous" and "sensitive".

Bihar police have arrested a man named Moti Paswan and two others, alleging they were ISI operatives and had caused the Pukhrayan derailment with a "pressure-cooker bomb". Uttar Pradesh police, though, have denied any sabotage.

After a suspected ISI member, Samshul Huda, was deported from Dubai to Nepal this month, the National Investigation Agency declared him the mastermind of the Pukhrayan tragedy.

"Any mistake in Gonda will harm the nation a lot. Not a single candidate of the Samajwadi Party or the Bahujan Samaj Party should win this election. You should ensure 100 per cent victory for the BJP," Modi said.

Modi also alleged that Gonda was notorious for mass copying in school and college exams, implying a BJP government would cure these ills.

But BJP sources said the majority of the educational institutions in the district belonged to two politicians, one from the BJP and the other a Samajwadi.

"We didn't quite get what exactly the Prime Minister was trying to convey to the voters," a BJP politician, who didn't want to be named, said.

• Gonda votes on February 27