Congress exploits sentiments of poor, divides society for votes: Modi

Bhopal: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday lamented that the Congress has refused to shed its decades’ old mindset of seeking votes by exploiting sentiments of the poor and dividing society on caste lines as well as glorifying one family.

Addressing a public rally in Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, Mr Modi said that the Congress was still playing the politics of seeking votes by exploiting sentiments of the poor, and dividing the society on caste lines, as the party was doing six decades ago.

“Also, the Congress’ vision that its future lies in the glorification of one family has remained unchanged in the last six decades”, Mr Modi said.

The PM laid the foundation for several projects and dedicated some other projects worth over Rs 19,000 crore including the Delhi-Vadodara Expressway passing through several districts in Madhya Pradesh, on the occasion.

He said that the Congress had an anti-development mindset and the party had no roadmap for development.

The party was not able to digest the growing stature of the country in the world.

“When the world sees the future in India, they (Congress) see their future in politics. They (Congress) appear not comfortable with the growing stature of the country at the international level”, he said.

Mr Modi said that his government has developed the country as the fifth largest economy in the world in the last nine years and set a target to make it to the top three economies in the world in the coming five years.

“They (Congress) got the opportunity (to rule the country) for 60 years. What they could not do in 60 years, we did it in nine years”, he said.

He said that corruptions, scandals, crimes and atrocities on women and scheduled caste and scheduled tribe people marked the six-decade-rule of Congress in the country.

He cited the housing scheme of the previous Congress government at the Centre to drive his point home.

“The quality of houses built under the Central schemes earlier was so poor that the beneficiaries in many cases had not even stepped into their homes even once”, he said.

“The houses given under the earlier housing schemes meant four walls only. But, the houses built under the current Prime Minister Awas Yojana are provided with all the basic amenities such as toilets, electricity connections , drinking water provision and LPG cylinders under Ujjala Yojana”, Mr Modi said.

He said that four crore houses have been given to the beneficiaries under the scheme in the country.

He said that women empowerment was not a vote bank politics, but a nation building mission.

Congress had been promising 33 percent reservation for women in the legislative bodies for the last several decades, but always tried to stop its legislation, he regretted.

“Modi guaranteed his guarantee by seeing through the women's reservation bill in the parliament”, he said.

He said that no other party had ever achieved the feat.

Mr Modi said that the previous Congress government in Madhya Pradesh had pushed the state to backwardness, reducing it to a ‘Bimaru’ (laggard) state.

But, the BJP government in the state has turned the ‘Bimaru’ MP into one of the ten best developed states in the country.

Describing Gwalior-Chambal in Madhya Pradesh as ‘land of brave hearts’, he said that “This land symbolises courage, pride, military honour, music, and the cultivation of mustard”

He added that Gwalior has given the nation a multitude of freedom fighters and Gwalior-Chambal has given brave hearts for the security of the country.

Gwalior has played a significant role in shaping policies and leadership of BJP.

He said that the Gwalior-Chambal region was pushed to backwardness during the Congress rule in Madhya Pradesh.

The region has witnessed development under the BJP rule in the state.

He warned the people that Congress would disrupt the current pace of development in the state and pushed it into backwardness again if voted to power and exhorted the people to ensure that the double engine governments of BJP in the state and the Centre continued to ensure speedy development of the state.