Nitin Gadkari addresses the digital rally. (Source: Twitter)
The biggest achievement of the Narendra Modi government in Centre is that the internal and external boundaries of the country have become secure in the past five years, said Union Minister of Road Transport, Highways and MSME Nitin Gadkari, while addressing a virtual rally of BJP workers from Nagpur to celebrate completion of the first year of BJP government’s second term.
This became possible due to the seriousness given by the government to external and internal security, added Gadkari. The virtual rally was organised for the north and south zones of the party in Gujarat in which thousands of party workers joined online through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Gujarat BJP president Jitu Vaghani, Union Minister Manskuh Mandaviya and Gujarat Minister Ganpat Vasava were also present on the occasion.
Speaking about the external boundaries with Pakistan and China, Gadkari said, “On one side we have China, and Pakistan on the other. We want peace. We want non-violence.”
He then cited reference from a noted novel — Mrutunjay — written by Marathi writer, Shivaji Sawant and said that peace and non-violence can be established only by those who are capable.
“We want to make India empowered not because we are imperialists. We never tried to usurp land of Bhutan.We do not want to take the rightful land of Pakistan. We do not want to take land of China either. We only want peace, amity and love,” said Gadkari.
He added that Pakistan had been resorting to cross-border terrorism after realizing that it cannot defeat us in direct war. But, he added, “For the first time, our country has taken strict action against such people.”
Gadkari claimed that under the Modi government, the problem of naxalism is nearing its end in the country.
“We are certainly feeling proud that whether it is Maoist naxalism or terrorism. Our internal and external borders are safe. Our brave soldiers are protecting our country. And the country has witnessed change in the two situations in last five years; it did not come in past 50-55 years.We could achieve internal and external security because of the priority given by us to it. It is our biggest achievement,” said Gadkari.
In his over half-an-hour-long speech, Gadkari also referred to the Covid-19 pandemic and expressed optimism that a vaccine against the disease will be invented soon.
“This crisis is not going to last long..Whatever information I gather, I can say it with confidence that a vaccine (against Covid-19) will be available soon. And once the vaccine is taken, we don’t have to worry about this crisis,” he said.
Gadkari also mentioned various developmental works done by of the Modi government in last six years. He cited abrogation of Article 370, housing for poor, various infrastructure and environmental projects like Ganga cleaning project & green energy initiatives as the achievements of the Modi government while emphasising a need to make the country as much ‘Atmanirbhar (self reliant)’ as possible.