High decibel celebration over two years of NaMo government -Governance Now

High decibel celebration over two years of NaMo government

BJP chief Amit Shah and central ministers present a record of development over the past two years

GN Bureau | May 26, 2016

#Uttar Pradesh #Assam #BJP #Nirmala Sitharaman #Amit Shah #Narendra Modi

The electoral victory in Assam has come just in time for the Narendra Modi government to celebrate its second anniversary with aplomb.

“We used to dream of this [forming government in the north east],” said Amit Shah, president, BJP, who had faced barbs and taunts of party men and rivals for BJP’s debacle after a high octane campaign in Bihar.

Talking to media persons at a function to mark the anniversary in the national capital, Shah said, “Assam was also an ideological battle for us.” It was an obvious reference to BJP’s stand against Muslim settlers from Bangladesh, who, are presumed to have large presence in Assam and whose interests were protected by the Congress for 15 years.

However, Shah admitted that BJP was yet to work out things for next year’s crucial challenge of assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. In UP, he said the key challenger was the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh and not the Bahujan Samaj Party [BSP]. He was also not sure if the party would strike an electoral deal with Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal in western UP, which is believed to be its stronghold.

“We have not discussed UP in the party so far,” he said candidly.

However BJP, he said, would keep intact its alliance with Shromani Akali Dal [SAD] in Punjab.

Shah led a pack of senior ministers to present a record of “development and progress” of India under Narendra Modi before invited media persons. Nirmala Sitharaman, MoS commerce, made the presentation with tagline “Mera desh Badal raha hai, Aage baad raha hai’ [my country is changing, it’s moving ahead]. Modi’s visage was on all publicity materials.

Sitharaman asserted that the progress under Modi was happening “without a trace of corruption”.

She said for the next few days, ministers and senior party leaders will fan across the states to spread the message of “development and progress under the Modi government”.

On the political front, Shah was somewhat cornered by media persons for his remarks about India becoming free of Congress party after the recent assembly elections. He however claimed that his remarks of ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ (India free of Congress) was an allusion to “corruption and collapse of governance under the Congress rule and not to the elimination of Congress party all together”.

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