Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday hit out at his critics saying if the NDA government had not come to power, the country would have slipped into “bure din” (gloomy days) with rampant corruption and nepotism.
He said his government had demolished traditional “power structures and circles” in the corridors of power. “There is no place for middle-men and lobbyists in Delhi now and that is hurting a lot of interests,’’ he said at a Jan Kalyan rally a day before the NDA government completes one year in office.
Hitting out at the previous UPA government, he said it was a government of scams and was run by “remote control.’’ He did not talk of his promised “acche din” (good days), but said the “bure din’’ of those who were unable to come to terms with the changed atmosphere had come in the first year of his government. That is why “they are shouting against the NDA government.”
The Prime Minister did not fail to invoke Lord Krishna and Pandit Deendayal Upadhaya at the rally in Mathura. The message of Lord Krishna, he said, was to do your karma while the message of Pandit Upadhyaya was “charaiveti charaiveti (keep working and walking) and this is what I do.”
He said the people had brought about the change by voting the BJP to power at the Centre. The work done by the NDA in the past one year can only be appreciated if it is compared with the previous government’s work. “Even 365 hours will not be enough for me to describe how my every moment was dedicated to a new decision and attempt to change things,’’ he asserted.
“We have to think of from where we started,’’ he told the sizeable audience at the Deendayal Dham and mentioned the ``Commonwealth games, coal and 2G spectrum” scams. “For 60 years only their voice was heard but I will not allow any further loot of the country,’’ he said reiterating that he was the main custodian of public money.
He said he had decided to kick-start the rallies celebrating one year of his government from Nangla Chandrabhan and not any big city to take forward the idea of ``good governance’’ by his government which is dedicated to the poor. Ultimately the poor will be empowered to become his “soldiers... in the fight against poverty,” he said. Modi took credit for arresting inflation and said in the last one year foreign investment had gone up eight times. More power had been generated in the last year than had been in 30 years, he claimed.
Modi said “dalals” had been chased out of government offices and would not make a return. “They are kicking and screaming but should know that their troubles have just begun,” Modi said.
Maintaining that he was not the “pradhan mantri but the pradhan santri” of the country, Modi said bad days were here for those who had looted the country all these years. “Kuch log pareshan hain ki sab logon ke acchhe din aa gaye hain par un sab ke bure din aa gaye hain (Some people are worried that despite good days for everybody, it is bad days for them),” Modi said. “Bure din have started for netaji's damaad, for netaji's son,” he said in a jibe at Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra.
Speaking against the backdrop of charges of being pro-rich and anti-farmer, Modi dwelt at length on the measures taken by his government for the benefit of the underprivileged and farmers even as he emphasized his focus on job creation for the youth.
Apart from graft, the concern for farmers clearly came through with Modi saying that his government's priority was to give a better life to agriculturists. Though there was no mention of the controversial land bill blocked by the opposition, Modi promised soil health cards to farmers in the next three years and 24x7 electricity in the next five years.
Mentioning that 300,000 farmers had committed suicide in the last 60 years, Mod appealed to parties not to politicize the issue. “The need is to sit together and think why the condition of farmers is so bad,” he said.
Detailing the good work undertaken over the past year, Modi invoked Rajiv Gandhi and said the former PM used to say that only 15 paise out of every rupee released from Delhi reached the intended beneficiaries.
