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”.

Comments

Other News

When Nandini Satpathy told Biju Patnaik: ‘I’ll sit on the chair you are sitting on’

Nandini Satpathy: The Iron Lady of Orissa By Pallavi Rebbapragada Simon and Schuster India, 321 pages, Rs 765

Elections 2024: 1,351 candidates in fray for Phase 3

As many as 1,351 candidates from 12 states /UTs are contesting elections in Phase 3 of Lok Sabha Elections 2024. The number includes eight contesting candidates for the adjourned poll in 29-Betul (ST) PC of Madhya Pradesh. Additionally, one candidate from Surat PC in Gujarat has been elected unopp

2023-24 net direct tax collections exceed budget estimates by 7.40%

The provisional figures of direct tax collections for the financial year 2023-24 show that net collections are at Rs. 19.58 lakh crore, 17.70% more than Rs. 16.64 lakh crore in 2022-23. The Budget Estimates (BE) for Direct Tax revenue in the Union Budget for FY 2023-24 were fixed at Rs. 18.

‘World’s biggest festival of democracy’ begins

The much-awaited General Elections of 2024, billed as the world’s biggest festival of democracy, began on Friday with Phase 1 of polling in 102 Parliamentary Constituencies (the highest among all seven phases) in 21 States/ UTs and 92 Assembly Constituencies in the State Assembly Elections in Arunach

A sustainability warrior’s heartfelt stories of life’s fleeting moments

Fit In, Stand Out, Walk: Stories from a Pushed Away Hill By Shailini Sheth Amin Notion Press, Rs 399

What EU’s AI Act means for the world

The recent European Union (EU) policy on artificial intelligence (AI) will be a game-changer and likely to become the de-facto standard not only for the conduct of businesses but also for the way consumers think about AI tools. Governments across the globe have been grappling with the rapid rise of AI tool