Kushinagar (UP): Union minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said frequent elections are not good for the country and efforts will be made to install the "one nation, one election" system in the next five years. Singh said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) believe that the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls should be held simultaneously across the country.
"In five years, we will try our best to make provisions for one nation, one election," the defence minister said, addressing a rally in support of Vijay Kumar Dubey, the BJP's Lok Sabha poll candidate from Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh.
Singh heaped praise on Modi for his leadership and for taking the country to new heights.
"When India speaks today, the world listens," he said, adding that even politicians in Pakistan are praising India, but those in the Congress and Samajwadi Party (SP) do not understand this.
"They (SP and Congress) are opposing Modi," he said.
Hitting out at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Singh said his great grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru, grandmother Indira Gandhi and father Rajiv Gandhi were prime ministers.
"Rahul Gandhi says he has seen the system very closely. He says the system that was there was anti-backwards, and anti-poor. He is talking about the governments of his great-grandfather, grandmother and father, and says the system during their times was anti-backwards and anti-poor.
"Rahul Gandhi himself is saying all these things, which means he is accepting that his government was against Dalits, the poor and backward classes. Tell me, have you seen such a leader anywhere? He is a strange leader," the senior BJP leader said.
Referring to former Union minister R P N Singh, who quit the Congress and joined the BJP, Rajnath Singh said, "Any sensible man will kick the Congress."
R P N Singh was seated next to the defence minister on the dais.
Rajnath Singh claimed that the BJP does not indulge in "Hindu-Muslim politics".
"We consider everyone a citizen of India. Be it Hindu, Muslim, Christian... We never discriminate and neither does our prime minister. Our party's ideology is also not like this," he said.
The BJP leader pointed out that India has become the fifth-largest economy in the world and credited Modi for it.
"By 2027, India will become the third-largest economy. I have no doubt that India will become a developed country by 2047, but if our government continues like this, India will become the largest economy in the world by 2070," he said.
The defence minister later addressed another rally in Robertsganj in support of Rinki Kol, the Apna Dal (Soneylal) candidate from the Lok Sabha constituency. The Apna Dal is an alliance partner of the BJP.
Slamming the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) of opposition parties, Singh said, "The INDI alliance is the India todo (break) alliance. It is saying the BJP will do away with reservations. It is spreading this lie because it does not have any issue."
"It claims that Modi will become a dictator if we (NDA) get 400 seats. I want to remind you of Indira Gandhi who had imposed an Emergency. Dictatorship was done by the Congress," he said, accusing the former prime minister of changing the Preamble of the Constitution.
Kushinagar and Robertsganj are scheduled to go to polls in the seventh and final phase of the Lok Sabha election on June 1. The counting of votes will be taken up on June 4.
