Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday declared that his battle against corruption was “uncompromising”, and said those indulging in graft cannot escape.
He was speaking at a day-long meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s National Executive here, which endorsed the government’s fight against terror and black money.
The meeting, attended by over 2,000 delegates, including chief ministers, MPs, MLAs and state unit chiefs, adopted a political resolution in which the vision of a “New India” was unveiled that included freeing India of poverty, terrorism and separatism, casteism, appeasement politics and corruption while focusing on cleanliness.
In his address, Modi said the battle against terrorism would continue and disclosed that 90 hardcore wanted terrorists have been deported to India from other countries.
“My battle against corruption will be uncompromising. Anybody caught in this cannot escape. I have no relatives,” Modi said.
At the meeting, the prime minister was hailed for bringing international focus on the role of Pakistan in sponsoring terrorism against India and for the resolution of the Doklam military standoff with China.
The resolving of the Doklam crisis reflected the political and diplomatic maturity of Modi who had talked to Chinese President Xi Jinping and hailed his policy of neighbourhood first, according to the party’s political resolution.
“It was an extraordinary success of the government,” Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said, briefing the media on the political resolution.
The resolution hailed several decisions the government took in the last three-and-half years on economy, agriculture, terrorism and international relations.
The one nation, one tax GST regime was hailed as the biggest economic reform since independence.
Modi took on the opposition for criticising his government saying “harsh language cannot be a substitute for any substantive charge against the government”.
“The opposition used power for consumption. They do not know how to sit in the opposition,” he said.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley quoted Modi as saying that the BJP was not a conventional party just to fight and win elections but an instrument of serving people.
“Democracy is beyond that. For a political organisation, elections are only a part but the main attempt is to make it as an instrument of mass participation. Till a political worker does not participate in it, it would not be a success,” Modi said.
Jaitley said these two were the basic points of the prime minister’s speech.
Modi referred to the expectations and aspirations of the people and the atmosphere that was prevailing now.
Coming down heavily on Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, BJP president Amit Shah said his party totally opposes politics of dynasty and appeasement and only believes in politics of performance.
In his presidential address, Shah said the government was working towards ending the sufferings of the people of the country and fighting corruption and terrorism.
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, who briefed the media on Shah’s closed-door address, said the party president noted that Gandhi had hurt the dignity of the nation by saying on foreign soil that dynastic politics was the way in India.
“The BJP rejects the politics of dynasty and appeasement. Condemning Gandhi’s statement, the BJP president said the party believed in politics of performance and not appeasement or dynasty,” Goyal said, citing Shah.
Shah also questioned Gandhi over scams during the Congress rule which he said were to the tune of Rs12tn.




40mn rural households to get free power


Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday announced that the government will provide free electricity to 40mn rural homes so that the poor can have access to power. The decision will cost the government Rs163.2bn which will not be passed on to the poor, Modi said. He said the connections will be delivered at the doorsteps of the rural poor and they will not have to go after government officials. The prime minister was speaking at a function to launch “Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojna”, a scheme for providing electricity to every household, at the renovated ONGC Bhavan, renamed after Bharatiya Janata Party ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya. The scheme is aimed at providing electricity connection to every household in the country by March 31, 2019.