NEW DELHI: Prime Minister
Narendra Modi on Sunday said that his 'timetable' depends on "working for the common man," and not on the schedule of elections.
"I never make my timetable on the basis of the election timetable. My timetable depends on the task of working for the common man and limiting that task to a certain timeframe,"
PM Modi said in an interview to Times Now+
editor-in-chief
Rahul Shivshankar and managing editor
Navika Kumar.
He criticised governments that had only announced schemes, only to forget about them later.
PM Modi emphasised that he, on the contrary, only picks up schemes "which I can make efforts for," and stays in the loop about their progress.
"When I said from the Red Fort that within a year I will make sure that every school and college will have a toilet, I did it," he recalled.
When asked if he was under political pressure
to announce a populist Budget+
in anticipation of the 2019
Lok Sabha elections, the PM clarified that the common man "doesn't demand sops and freebies."
Instead, he said that "the common man expects honesty," and any information to the contrary was a "myth".
PM Modi stressed that the Budget fell under the ambit of the finance minister and he would not interfere with it.
"We run the government, take decisions to fulfill the common man's need and aspirations. And we are tackling obstacles and marching ahead," he added.