Bhopal: Union home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday exuded confidence that BJP would retain power in Madhya Pradesh in the year-end assembly elections by securing more than 150 seats.
Launching BJP’s ‘Jan Ashirwad Yatra’, a mega mass-contact programme, in the Mahakaushal region of Madhya Pradesh from Mandla, Mr Shah said that the campaign was launched by the party to seek blessings of the people in the ensuing assembly polls for the good work done by the government for the development of the state.
Five such yatras were being launched from five different places in the state ahead of the forthcoming assembly elections, due in MP in November this year.
All the five yatras would culminate in Bhopal on September 25.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to address the party workers here on the occasion.
“The Jan Ashirwad Yatra will lay the foundation for BJP to win more than 150 out of the total 230 assembly seats in the state”, Mr Shah said.
The Union minister said that Madhya Pradesh had inherited the legacy of being a ‘BIMARU’ (laggard) state from the previous Congress regime.
The BJP chief ministers, particularly Shivraj Singh Chouhan, have turned the state as ‘Bemisal’ (unmatched) in the last four decades, he added.
He praised Mr Chouhan particularly for undertaking measures for the development of tribals in Madhya Pradesh and said that the Shivraj government has shown the path of tribal development to other states.
Madhya Pradesh was the first state which implemented the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, 1996, he said.
Mr Shah lambasted two Congress veterans, Digvijay Singh and Kamal Nath, accusing them of neglecting the state when they were chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh.
“Mr Bantadhar (Mr Destroyer) had left behind the ‘BIMARU’ state legacy”, he said while referring to Mr Singh's ten-year-rule in 1993-2003.
Similarly, 53 Central welfare schemes were stopped when Mr Nath came to power in the state in 2018, he added.
Mr Shah also slammed Congress for pursuing minority appeasement policy, recalling the former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s assertion that minorities have the first right on the natural resources of the country.
But, the situation has changed after Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, he said.
The Modi government at the Centre worked for the uplift of tribals, dalits, the poor and backward classes who have the right to the natural resources of the country, he added.
“Now, you have to choose between the two ideologies”, he said while addressing a public rally organised on the occasion.
He said that the current regime at the Centre has made an allocation of Rs 1.19 lakh crore for tribal welfare as against the allocation of Rs 24,000 crore made during the previous Congress regime.
