Targeting the Congress for lack of development and corruption, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent a strong message to the masses that his fight against corruption would continue as he was voted to power with two-thirds majority on a promise to do the same.
Addressing a BJP meeting at the ITI grounds here on Monday, Modi said: “I have deliberately chosen Ghazipur to address a rally on the birth anniversary of our first prime minister Pt Jawaharlal Nehru because it was in 1962 that when local parliamentarian Vishwanath Singh Gahmari narrated the poverty of this region, tears started flowing down the eyes of many MPs, forcing Pt Nehru to constitute the Patel Commission to study the condition of poverty and backwardness of Purvanchal (eastern UP),” he said, adding that it was shocking that all the recommendations of the said commission were still gathering dust in files.
“It is my tribute to Pt Nehru to fulfill the long awaited demands of the people of this region to construct a bridge over river Ganga at Tadi Ghat, as a part of laying new rail tracks between Mau and Tadighat,” he said, adding that it would be a befitting reply to the Congress which was misleading people since independence.
“I have already instructed the Rail Minister that the project should be completed in a stipulated time frame,” he said.
After wooing the Ghazipuris raising local issues, the PM trained his guns on corruption in an effective manner. “The political parties, specially the Congress, are criticising me for the problems being faced by people after withdrawal of old currency notes and misleading the poor and village women that the PM would tax their hard-earned savings. It was the same party that had converted the entire country in ‘Jailkahana’ (prisons) for 19 months, even putting restrictions on the press and crushing the voices of those spoke against the excesses of Emergency,” he said.
Going further, he said that Indira Gandhi had imposed Emergency to save her power after the Allahabad High Court’s verdict against her and for an individual’s satisfaction, the entire country had suffered for a long period but when he just wanted 50 days from the people to check the flow of black money in the country, the party was blaming him for going against the constitution. “If it is against the Constitution, then with what power the Congress government had withdrawn ‘chawannis’ (25 paisa coins),” he asked, making a satiric attack that if that was capacity of Congress to withdraw ‘chawannis’, it was his capacity to withdraw Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes.
Defending his decision, he said that terrorists and naxalites were killing innocent people as they were getting funds from illegal sources . Not only this, fake currency of these denominations were printed and supplied by a anti-national network. “If I tried to hit this unfair nexus and foil their nefarious designs, many have started losing their patience by fanning the flames against the government by misleading the people. But I want to tell them in strong words that the people had voted me to the power to fight corruption and I will continue this fight against the same whatever problems come by, he said, adding that his government is for the poor and so “we named new trains like Sabdbedi (a weekly Ghazipur-Kolkata train flagged off by him) and Mahamana Express after the heritage instead of naming everything after just a family.
Earlier, at an adjacent stage the PM laid the foundation stone for a Rs 1,762 crore new rail line between Mau-Tadighat and twin rail-road bridge on river Ganga. He also laid the foundation stone for doubling the tracks on Ghazipur City-Ballia rail route and flagged off the Ghazipur-Kolkata weekly superfast ‘Sabd Bhedi’.
Apart from this, he also inaugurated the newly-constructed perishable cargo at Ghazipur Ghat through remote control. Besides, he gave passbooks to five girls under the Sukanya Smridhi Yojna, felicitating two gram pradhans (Kamla and ShivShankar Singh) for opening of saving accounts of cent percent villagers.
The chairman of Railway Board AK Mittal gave away a tulsi plant to Modi while CMD of Railway Vikash Nigam limited (RVNl) S Agnihotri presented a memento. The function was also attended by the Governor Ram Naik, Rail Minister Suresh Prabhu, minister of state for Rail (MOSR) Manoj Sinha, Union minister of state for human resources development Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey, Union minister of state for Health Anupriya Patel, UP Panchayati Raj minister Ram Govind Chaudhary, state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Keshav Prasad Maurya, national party vice-president Om Mathur, leader of BJP legislative Party Suresh Khanna, MPs Hari Narayan Rajbhar (Ghosi), Bharat Singh (Ballia), KP Singh (Jaunpur), general manager of North Eastern Railway Rajeev Mishra, and several senior BJP leaders and railway officers. The function was conducted by Krishna Bihari Rai while the vote of thanks was proposed by district BJP chief Bhanu Pratap Singh.