PM Modi tears into UPA’s ‘A,B,C mentality’

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday hit out at UPA, accusing it of corruption and misgovernance, and said that his government had moved away from the “A,B,C mentality — A for avoiding, B for burying and C for confusing”.

“Instead of avoiding an issue, we dealt with it; instead of burying it, we dug it out and communicated with the people; and instead of confusing the system, we demonstrated a solution was possible,” he said while addressing the fifth edition of the Global Business Summit, presented by YES Bank and The Economic Times.

Modi said that this approach had helped the government scale up its social sector interventions, helping it run on two tracks and provide social infrastructure, especially to those left out of the development process, as well as physical infrastructure to everyone.

Addressing global and Indian CEOs, Modi listed out improvements in various economic parameters and detailed the steps taken for a more balanced development and changing mindsets.

“For decades, a narrative was made that certain things were just impossible in India. The progress our nation has achieved since 2014 gives me confidence that nothing is impossible for 130 crore Indians. Namumkin ab mumkin hai (impossible is now possible),” the Prime Minister said.

‘UPA competed on graft, we compete on development’

Prime Minister Modi on Saturday informed the audience of global and Indian CEOs of his government’s achievements during the last five years and said that the steps had helped India move up global rankings across parameters.

“I would like to give you an interesting example of how things have changed since 2014. We are now witnessing various forms of competition. A competition between ministries, a competition between states, a competition on development, a competition on achieving targets. Today, there is a competition as to whether India will get 100% sanitation first or 100% electrification first,” he said.

The PM then attacked the Congress-led coalition for promoting corruption. “Before 2014 also, we heard of about competition, although of a different kind. A competition between ministries, between individuals... on corruption, a competition on delays. There was competition on who can do maximum corruption... fastest corruption... most innovation in corruption. There was competition as to whether coal will get more money or spectrum...whether CWG would get more money or defence deals. We all saw that and we also know who were the main players involved in this competition. I will leave it to you to decide which form of competition you would prefer.”

He argued that his government’s policies had led to rapid economic growth along with low inflation, something that had eluded his predecessors since liberalisation, resulting in greater confidence in the economy. “Today this confidence is shown not only by domestic investors, but also by investors from all across the world. And the confidence shown in India continues, breaking the earlier trend of pre-election years.”

Earlier, while welcoming the PM, Times Group managing director Vineet Jain complimented him for “never shying away from dreaming big, and from setting yourself bold targets — even when they’ve seemed almost unachievable”. He listed Swachh Bharat, Ujjwala, Saubhagya, Jan Dhan and Ayushman Bharat among what he called “game-changing initiatives”.

However, Jain added, “Even as structural reforms change the Indian economic landscape, the challenges on the regulatory front have become ever more complex. There is increasing recognition all over the world of the need for a level playing field between traditional and new media. In order to ensure plurality of choice and net neutrality, the issue of convergence between telcos, digital content providers, and distribution networks needs to be addressed.”