Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will secure over 50 per cent of the total votes polled in next year’s Lok Sabha elections.

Addressing the meeting of the NDA in the national capital, which came hours after 26 Opposition parties held their second unity meeting in Bengaluru on Tuesday, PM Modi said, “The NDA got 38 per cent (of the total votes polled) in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Acknowledging the work that we put in to safeguard our national interests, they reposed their faith in us and gave us 45 per cent of the (total) vote share in the 2019 elections. All our alliance partners are working sincerely and dedicatedly, which gives me the confidence that we will get over 50 per cent vote share in 2024.” He stated further that the NDA has always put the country over selflish political interests, adding that the abuse of rivals has come to be the identity of the Opposition parties.

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“In politics, there can be competitiveness, not enmity. We have always kept India above all political interests. It is the NDA government that conferred the Bharat Ratna on Pranab-da (former President and senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee). We also conferred the Padma award on Sharad Pawar, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Muzaffar Baig and many other leaders, who were not with us. We always kept India above all political interests,” PM Modi said.

Further, in a veiled at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his remark at an event in London earlier this year, questioning why the “defenders to democracies” were unmoved over the prevailing state of affairs in India, PM Modi said even when the NDA was in the Opposition, it never insulted the people’s mandate or never took help of foreign powers to destablize the ruling governments.

“Even when we were in the Opposition, we always preached and practised positive politics. We unearthed scams of previous governments but never questioned or insulted the mandate of the people. We never took the help of foreign powers against the ruling governments. We never created hurdles to development schemes meant for the welfare of the country and its people,” PM Modi said.

The NDA leaders, who arrived for the meeting, also posed for a group photograph before going into a huddle.
The meeting is part of the BJP’s ongoing efforts to shore up the NDA and devise a joint strategy against the fledgeling grand Opposition alliance, ‘INDIA’, with an eye on next year’s Lok Sabha elections.