Amid Opposition efforts to forge a national front against the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, Union Commerce and Textiles minister Piyush Goyal on Sunday said the country had deeply suffered long periods of coalition rule and was benefitting immensely from the majority mandate with which PM Modi took the highest office in the country.

Speaking exclusively to ANI, Goyal said, “I think the country has enough experience of such coalition governments. We’ve suffered deeply for long periods when the country only saw coalition governments. I believe the country has been benefitting immensely from the majority mandate with which PM Modi took the highest office in the country.” Hailing the nine years of governance under the leadership of PM Modi, the Union Minister added, “In the last nine years, he has been working with Seva, Sushasan, and Garib Kalyan (service, good governance and welfare of the poor) as the very core philosophy of his government.”

“You can see that in every walk of life… the element of service the compassion and empathy with which he works. Giving back to the poorest of the poor is his primary motive. Improving the lives of the poorest in this country and the fact that we brought good governance at the core of the nation’s thinking is really the USP of this government.”

On attempts at a Grand Opposition Alliance against the BJP, the Minister said, “Any amount of such unholy alliances or such conglomeration… you must have heard the proverb, ‘ kahin ki innt, kahin ka roda, Bhanumati ne kunba joda ‘ (bringing together elements that don’t go with each other). This is even worse because here there is absolutely no common ideology, there’s no common philosophy, and there couldn’t be a common minimum programme. Even post that meeting (in Patna) they fought, and still continue to fight on television shows. So I think the people of India certainly don’t want a hotch-potch like this again.”

On Congress’s recent electoral successes in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka, Goyal said while the BJP fights all polls with utmost sincerity at all levels, the results in the two states only reinforce the fact that democracy in India is well and good and the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are also in good order.

On his recent US visit, Rahul reiterated his claim that democracy in India was under threat as free speech was being muzzled and institutions were not being allowed to work independently.

“We contest every election with utmost seriousness at all levels, which is why the people of this country put love and faith in us. They gave us their mandate twice and the second time the majority was even more than the first. And in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, too, they will give us their mandate. We believe it will be even bigger and stronger than the previous ones because they have faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”

Further lashing out at the Congress, he said that their losses in 2014 and 2019 rid the country of a ‘colonial mindset’ that they had a ‘divine right to rule.’

“They believe that they have a divine right to rule and theirs is the one and only family that matters. This kind of family-run politics is certainly not good for the country, the mindset of keeping the nation poor and giving slogans and promises but never implementing them,” the minister said, adding, “It is that old mindset which is almost like a colonial mindset that continued in India for so many decades even after independence– that which PM Modi has been successful in gradually getting out of the psyche of the common man.”