Stating that the Congress and its “arrogant” coalition partners were perturbed by the pace of development during the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) 10-year rule, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 11 accused the INDIA bloc parties of continuing to watch everything through the “lens of negativity”.
Addressing a rally here to inaugurate and lay the foundation stone of 112 National Highway projects across the country worth about ₹1 lakh crore, Mr. Modi said the Congress and its allies had “lost sleep” over infrastructure works worth lakhs of crores of rupees and did not have the courage to discuss “vikas” (development). He said the country had changed a lot over the past few years, but the Congress and INDIA bloc parties had not changed the way they looked at the things around them. “Unke chasme ka number wahi hai, all negative, negative aur kewal negative (the power of their glasses remains all negative),” Mr. Modi said.
Holding the second rally in south Haryana in less than a month’s time, Mr. Modi said he could not think small or make small resolutions. “Mujhe jo bhi chahiye virat chahiye (I only seek the enormous),” he said, adding that today’s India did not compromise on the pace of development. He said he alone had inaugurated and laid the foundation stones of projects worth ₹10 lakh crore over the past two months.
Mr. Modi claimed that 25 crore people had come out of poverty in the past 10 years and India had become the fifth largest economy from the 11th largest during this period.
Accusing the previous governments of making announcements merely to win elections, Mr. Modi said there had been “delays” earlier but now the “delivery” happened. “We work equally hard to complete the projects for which we lay the foundation stones. We are not bothered about the elections,” Mr. Modi said, adding that metro connectivity had been expanded from five cities to 21 during his rule.
He said the “pits dug by the Congress in the past seven decades were being filled up quickly”, and his dream was to make India a developed nation by 2047. “We will work to build a tall building on the strong foundation laid in the past 10 years. This is Modi’s guarantee,” the PM said, asking the audience to wave their mobile phone flash lights to celebrate the “festival of development”.
