BJP president Amit Shah with UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow on Saturday. (Express photo: Vishal Srivastav)Claiming that Congress president Rahul Gandhi was “misguiding farmers in the name of loan waiver,” BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday said that the previous UPA government, formed with the support of ‘Bua-Bhatija’ (Akhilesh-Mayawati), had left the Indian economy at the ninth position globally, while within five years Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought it to the sixth position.
Addressing the party’s ‘Sahkarita Bandhu Sammelan’ at Dr Ram Manohar Lohia University in Lucknow, Shah said the development of Gujarat, witnessed by the world,had “cooperative revolution” at its base. He added that Uttar Pradesh was the state with “maximum cooperative potential.”
Later in the day, he inaugurated a two-day BJP Kisan Morcha national convention in Gorakhpur. Modi is scheduled to attend the event on Sunday.
In Gorakhpur, referring to the recent terror attack in Pulwama, Shah said the BJP government has a zero-tolerance stance against terrorism. He said, “Since Independence, if any government has tried to give befitting reply to terrorism, it is the BJP’s Narendra Modi-led government. Be it a reply in the diplomatic direction or answering a bullet with bullet, or even a surgical strike… the BJP government didn’t hesitate.”
Earlier, speaking at an event in Lucknow, the BJP chief said, “The whole administrative and political structure of Uttar Pradesh was destroyed because of the SP and BSP… We have to do overall development of the state… we have to build the cooperative infrastructure on the lines of Gujarat and Maharashtra.”
He added that a “vijay utsav” would be celebrated only when the BJP wins more than 74 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.
Targeting Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, he said, “The Narendra Modi government is the only government that brought in scientific ways to make the development of farmers inclusive and to double farmers’ income… Rahul Baba used to make fun by saying that doubling farmers’ income is not a joke. But…we are going to double farmers income by 2022.”
