Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday addressed a massive BJP-Mahayuti election rally at Mumbai’s historic Shivaji Park and said the Congress is fighting the election just for its survival, while the BJP will break all previous records when the results come out on 4th June and India will emerge as a super-power.
He said he had come to the “dream city” with the dream of Viksit Bharat (developed India) in 2047 and Mumbai will have a big role in realizing this dream. Mumbai knows the value of speed. Many countries getting Independence along with India are today “ahead of us,” he said.
The problem lay with Congress governments which did not have confidence in India’s capacity, he said. “There was a time when a Prime Minister called Indians lazy. Such people could never take the country forward,” he said, referring to India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. If the Congress had been dissolved, as advised by Mahatma Gandhi, the country would have been five decades ahead today.
Five decades were lost due to the manner the Congress worked, he said. “We were number six in economic terms in 1947, India reached the 11th place in 2014,” he said. Ever since he took over, in the last 10 years, India has become the fifth largest economic power in the country, he said.
Mumbai and India are getting record investment. In a few years, in his third term of office, India will be the third largest economy in the world, he said. “I will leave behind a Viksit Bharat. I am therefore working 24×7 for 2047, every moment dedicated to the country,” he said.
Some people say it is not possible, he said. “People who are steeped in pessimism cannot be made optimistic easily. They considered Ram temple also impossible. Some day the world will have to accept that people living in India were so firm on their ideas that they fought 500 years for the Ram temple, and made sacrifices for it, he said.
These pessimistic people considered removal of Article 370 impossible; it has been buried in a burial ground, those seeing dreams of reviving Article 370, should know, no power in the world can bring back Article 370, the Prime Minister said.
“We used to have serial blasts, there were terrorist attacks, cities like Mumbai lived in fear, always advised about unclaimed articles lying around. Do you hear of such things now? Parliament ended triple talaq social evil. Women got 33 per cent reservation after 40 years’ wait and despite opposition,” he said.
The Congress just talked of poverty removal for 60 years, he said. “You can listen to speeches of Congress Prime Ministers; they talked of poverty and the poor, and said it was impossible to do anything about it. Modi took 25 crores out of poverty in 10 years,” he said.
“Who made this possible, this was the power of your vote,” he said. Those who want a bright future for their children, development, want to see India as a country of pride, should come out and vote.
Mr Modi said while his government has a report card of its work in the last 10 years, and a vision for the next 25 years, the Congress and its INDI alliance partners have only a confused picture of issues.
“They are eyeing gold in temples, mangal-sutras of women, they are planning an inheritance tax. The Congress wants to deprive you of 50 per cent of your legacy. Mumbai has the fourth largest stock market and one can see how it is going up. The INDI alliance wants to hurt the confidence people have in the stock market. The INDIA thinking can lead to a massive economic crisis,” he said.
He said the Nakli Shiv Sena has gone with Ram temple abusers for power. Only for elections, the Congress has stopped speaking against Vir Savarkar. Nakli Shiv Sena is opposing CAA, this is unbelievable; for appeasement and vote bank, this party has let down Mumbai.
The Aghadi leaders are giving clean chit to Pakistan on 26/11 attack. They are insulting Ambedkar by proposing reservation on the basis of religion, and want to deprive Dalit, backwards and OBCs of their reservation benefit. “I will not let them take away the deprived sections’ reservation benefit,” he said.
PM began his Mumbai visit by paying tributes to Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar at Chaityabhoomi in Dadar and at Vir Savarkar’s national memorial.