Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday his opponents were scared of him because the “chowkidar does not sleep”. “Unhey Chowkidar sey darr lagta hai . Chowkidar choron ko chhodney ko tayaar nahin” (They are scared of chowkidar. The chowkidar won’t spare the thieves),” Modi said in his 50-minute address at a rally in Dharamsala to mark one year of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state.

The Prime Minister said there were six crore fake beneficiaries of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in the country earlier. “These were the people who never took birth, and existed only on paper in different categories. A huge amount of Rs 90,000 crore was going somewhere else. There must be some people who may have been pocketing it. I checked this and stopped this theft,” he said at the Jan Abhar rally.

Modi sad just because he stopped the “loot”, those who had been hit were calling him “thief”. “But I am not going to leave the fight,” he said.

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The Prime Minister accused Congress of befooling the farmers by making false promises of farm loan wavier only for elections. “They have not kept their promise in Punjab. In Karnataka, and few hundred farmers were benefitted with a token amount. Earlier they deceived the army jawans and are now trying to do the same to farmers,” he said.

He referred to the issue of One Rank One Pension for ex-servicemen, which was announced by the previous UPA government just ahead of polls.

“They kept a budget of Rs 500 crore for the benefit. On coming to power, when I looked into the file, the amount required for One Rank One Pension was Rs 12000 crore. We disbursed the amount in four installments,” he said.

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Modi alleged that the Congress had promised in 2008 to waive farm loans. “The total farm loans were to the tune of 6 lakh crore, of which a waiver of Rs. 60,000 was announced. In actual, loans worth Rs. 5200 crore were waived,” he said.

“Why do they make promises, which they can’t fulfil?” Modi questioned. Appreciating the Himachal government slogan “Imaandaar Prayas Ka, Ek Saal Vikas Ka”, Modi said his government was also putting in honest efforts in different sectors for overall growth of the nation.

The Prime Minister said India was fast emerging as an attraction for tourists across the world.

He said the figure of 70 lakh foreign tourists in India in 2013 rose to 1 crore in 2017, and similarly the money spent by them rose from 18 billion dollars to 27 billion dollars during this period. He said India was now on 40^th position compared to 65 earlier, as per World Economic Forum survey on travel and tourism.

Modi was all praise for the Jai Ram Thakur government in Himachal Pradesh for initiatives taken to reach the common man in the first year.

The Prime Minister said the state government was doing remarkable work in development of not only tourism, agriculture but also industry.

Listing the Centre’s help to Himachal Pradesh in terms of money, he told the people of Himachal that this ‘double engine’ (BJP in state and Centre) will help the vehicle of development move fast in the hills.

Modi earlier talked to beneficiaries of some central an state schemes and swathe exhibition put up by different departments on the initiative.