AFP PHOTO / PRAKASH SINGH Gandhinagar: Continuing with Congress bashing, which has been the only recurring thread in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speeches in the run up to the elections in poll-bound Gujarat, he on Sunday enumerated the benefits of having the same party government at the Centre and in the states to ensure speedy development.
Seeking to make a case why voters must continue with the BJP government in Gujarat, where Modi was the chief minister from 2001 to 2014, the prime minister highlighted the Centre-State ‘jugalbandi’: ‘‘Morarji Desai as prime minister and Babubhai Patel in Gujarat, Atal Bihari Vajpayee at the Centre and Keshubhai Patel in the state, and again my government in Delhi and Vijay Rupani’s in Gujarat, now.’’
Conveniently forgetting to mention the long line of Congress chief ministers in Gujarat with the same party government at the Centre, Modi said that progress takes place in leaps and bounds when Delhi responds positively to a state’s needs. ‘‘Gujarat should make the best of a sympathetic government at the Centre and leave no stone unturned to benefit from it,” he said, cited the example of the Vajpayee government which had helped Gujarat tide over the Bhuj quake.
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Modi said that the only thing synonymous with the Congress rule in the country was corruption — ‘‘Corruption in everything from coal to submarines and even in defence contracts, and a seemingly unending birth right to rule over the country, coupled with total lack of vision.”
‘‘Electricity to every home in the country by 2019 and a home for every family by 2022 is the priority of my government. They spoke of raising the number of cooking gas cylinders from 9 to 12, while we targeted 5 crore LPG connections and have already given 3 crore connections”, he said, seeking to draw comparisons in the two approaches.
Prime Minister Modi, who inaugurated the first phase of the Rs 650 crore, 31-km ‘roll-on, roll-off’ (Ro-Ro) ferry service between Ghogha in Bhavnagar district and Dahej in Bharuch district, termed it as a landmark project of South East Asia. ‘‘The previous government had set such impossible conditions that similar projects could never fructify, but it is my government that cut through the clutter and made it possible. You cannot ask bus transporters to make roads, nor aircraft operators to build airfields.’’
Modi was scathing in his attack on the UPA government at the Centre alleging that it had tried to stall numerous development projects of the state. ‘‘Ever since I have taken over, the process has been streamlined. The ferry service had been in a limbo since 1995; I laid the foundation stone for it in 2012 and am inaugurating it today,” he added.
The RO-RO ferry service will reduce the distance for travel and transport from 360 to 31 km between Saurashtra and South Gujarat. The prime minister, who boarded the ferry from Ghogha and disembarked at Dahej, praised the economic policies of his government. ‘‘The country’s economy is on the correct path. The forex reserves have increased from US$ 30,000 crore to US$ 40,000 crores. This is because of numerous measures initiated by us and these would be pursued to their logical conclusion. We intend to make India an economic powerhouse capable of holding its own place in the comity of nations,” he added.
He said that those who had benefited from the old corrupt systems are bound to be unhappy and will naturally target his government. ‘‘Goods that would normally take five days to reach their destination now reach in three, because there is no need to stand at octroi tax booths. There is saving in fuels cost and greasing of palms, and this makes the corrupt angry with my government,” he added.
Opposition has no ‘authority’ to question EC, asserts PM
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that the Opposition parties have no ‘authority’ to question the Election Commission and its decisions. “The Opposition parties have no authority to question the EC over the election schedule. People have issues on my visit to Vadodara. They cannot say anything to me, therefore, they are putting pressure on the EC. But I want to make it clear that they do not have any right to point a finger at the commission,” he said.
Further taking a jibe at former finance minister P. Chidambaram, the Prime Minister said, ‘Someone’ who won during ‘recounting’ is targeting the EC now.”
