Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was here on Tuesday to attend an event to mark 100 years of Mahatma Gandhi’s Champaran Satyagraha, attacked the Opposition for disintegrating society by fanning communal tension.
“They (Opposition) are not allowing us to work smoothly as they are not ready to accept changes. The NDA is working to bring together people of the country while some (Opposition) are busy in disintegrating society,” he said.
The Prime Minister was addressing over 20,000 swachchhagrahis (ambassador of cleanliness) who had congregated from actors the country at the district headquarters of East Champaran from where Gandhi had introduced his Satyagraha exactly 101 years ago on April 15, 1917. Modi also congratulated the Nitish Kumar-led Bihar Government for leading the Swachchhta campaign. “I am proud of the fact that Bihar has shown its leadership abilities in this journey from Satyagraha to Swachchhagraha,” said the Prime Minister who started his speech in Bhojpuri language, drawing thunderous applause from the audience most of whom hailed from the Northern State.
Modi exhorted the people to fulfil the dreams of the New India by eradicating the ills and drawbacks in society and eliminate the corruption, casteism and communal tension by joining hands and coming up to the expectations of Mahatma Gandhi.
Addressing the special function, Modi launched his Swachchhgraha campaign with a target to make India ODF (open defecation free) by 150th birth anniversary of Gandhi on October 2, 2019.
Modi said the sanitation is the biggest drive as no campaign of this magnitude has been launched in the world. “This is a case study for the world universities as no such mass movement happened in the world,” he claimed while quoting different reports and surveys.
While treating communalism a major social evil, the Prime Minister endorsed the concerns of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who in his speech, said that nation could not progress with communal tension and clash. The Chief Minister’s comments came in the wake of the series of communal clashes in Bihar during Ram Navmi festivities in which some top BJP leaders — including Ashwini Kumar Choubey and Giriraj Singh — were involved in controversy. Incidentally, both of them were present on the dais apart from several Cabinet Ministers such as Ram Vilas Paswan, Radha Mohan Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad and others. Bihar Governor Satyapal Malik and Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi were also present.
The Prime Minister repeatedly praised Nitish and the Bihar NDA Government for working in right direction. “I praise the courage, patience and good governance of Nitish Kumar who is fighting the forces of corruption and the Centre supports his efforts,” he said.
Lauding Bihar for it record performance in the sanitation campaign, Modi said 8.5 lakh toilets were constructed in Bihar only in one week and the State has reached the national average which is a “commendable work”.
Taking a dig at the Opposition for stalling Parliament session, the Prime Minister said some forces were hell-bent on putting obstacles in the works from “road to Parliament”. They think that if poor people will become strong they will not be able to misguide them. The phase of bharkana (instigation), latkana(negation) and bhatkana (misleading) is over and those who don’t like this change are feeling pangs, he added.
“It is the duty of 125 crore people to maintain this sanitation from roads to railway stations, shops to schools and colleges, markets to lanes and mohallas to houses,” the Prime Minister said and called upon all the public representatives from MPs to mukhiyas to engage in Swachch Bharat abhiyan.
Listing the benefits of toilet, Modi said the surveys have suggested that a toilet in a house saves an average of Rs 50,000 annually which were being used on treatment of various diseases, the cases of diarrhoea come down and also there is betterment of education to children as they don’t need sick leaves which they used to take due to illness.
The Prime Minister paid tribute to Bihar on three counts: When country was a slave, Gandhi launched Satyagraha from this place and Bihar made him Mahatma and Bapu, after the independence here and when country’s democracy was threatened Jaya Prakash Narayan came forward an save the democracy.
The PM on this occasion launched or unveiled a number of big projects through remote control that included a new train between Katihar and Delhi, doubling of rail lines in Muzaffarpur and Sugauli, greenfield locomotive factory at Madhepura, sewerage lines in Patna, drinking water project in Bettiah and beautification of Moti lake in Motihari.