Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: Niticentral.com
Date: March 3, 2014
URL: http://www.niticentral.com/2014/03/03/next-decade-belongs-to-the-marginalised-narendra-modi-195586.html

The coming decade belongs to the poor, the oppressed and the marginalised, Narendra Modi told a spectacular rally at Muzaffarpur, while appreciating the return of Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader Ram Vilas Paswan to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) fold. The decade would be dedicated to securing their rights, “We are very clear on that,” the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate thundered at the Hunkar Rally on Monday, expressing high expectations about the 40 Lok Sabha seats from Bihar. For the BJP, the road to Delhi runs not just through Uttar Pradesh but equally through Bihar, a point succinctly made by former Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi.

Opposition parties were stunned when the BJP, which they considered “a party of Brahmins and Banias, nominated a backward as PM candidate,” Narendra Modi observed, but the next decade belongs to the marginalised. Reaching out to Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) leader Upendra Kushwaha who has also joined the National Democratic Alliance, the Gujarat strongman said, “The NDA is the National Development Alliance; it is expanding fast. This is not going to stop. Our strength will increase and so will the woes of our rivals.”

Taunting the Congress and the Third Front parties for making grand promises and delivering nothing, he said that the Third Front is never seen until election time when its constituent parties wake up, only to return to sleep for the next five years after the elections are over. “These seasonal players (chunaavi khiladi) can ruin the election atmosphere, but they do not benefit the people,” he cautioned, pointing out that the Third Front comprises of parties that have helped the Congress stay in power at the Centre either on account of some inducements or the CBI whip. Such hypocrisy cannot work in life, he said.

In a direct dig at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who refused to publicly associate with Narendra Modi in order to protect his Muslim vote-bank and secular image and forced the BJP out of the coalition Government in the State, Narendra Modi praised the scheduled caste leader Ram Vilas Paswan for maintaining personal cordiality despite leaving the NDA. “Ram Vilas ji has no hypocrisy, and whenever we have met, he has shown great affection. If the newspapers took photographs, he did not get frightened unlike other leaders who are nice in private and break into a cold sweat in public,” he said, adding that in democracy there is place for opposition but not for hypocrisy, because people forgive mistakes, but not duplicity.

Lambasting both the Centre and the Bihar Government for making the State a safe haven for terrorists due to vote-bank politics, Narendra Modi asserted, “Terrorism ruins the country, it is anti-humanity. Today the Nepal border has become a problem because the political system is providing a safe harbour in Bihar. The nation must speak in one voice to fight this war as the security of the nation and the people are at stake.”

Continuing his assault on secular parties, he said that previously it used to be a fashion to blame everything on foreign (read Western) agencies, then Pakistan’s ISI was held responsible for everything that went wrong. But nowadays, “…the new jadi-booti (medicine) is secularism. You talk about employment for youth and the reply is ‘secularism is in danger’; talk about price rise and the hunger of the poor or the needs of agriculture, and the response is ‘secularism’. This is cheating, ye fareb hai, desh ki janata ko gumraah karne ka kaam hai”, he lamented, bemoaning the deaths of innocents at the Hunkar Rally of October 27, 2013, when a series of bombs burst in the city and at the venue of his rally due to the regime’s political failure. “Those were wounds on the heart of Indian democracy,” he charged, “They were an assault on the Indian notions of bhaichara, ekta and sadbhavana” (brotherhood, unity and amity). Applauding the calm strength of the people who defeated the plans of the plotters by staying put on the grounds despite the grave threat to their lives, he said India would be built on the foundations of this strength and unity.

Narendra Modi said that the thought crossed his mind that somebody may not like him or the BJP, and may even like them to meet their end in bomb blasts, “but why were innocents killed? Those who died were our own brothers and sisters, but the vote-bank addicts cannot understand the pain.”

The issue before the nation is a strong and visionary leadership with the capacity to act. The BJP, he said, does not treat secularism as an election slogan. For us secularism means “all communities are ours, while our rivals think of communities as vote-banks”. Opposing the politics of divide and rule, he said that for the BJP politics is about development and progress of all, and justice for all instead of appeasement for all and justice for none. While the rival parties stand for ‘religion first’, the BJP does not indulge in political gimmicks and stands for ‘India first’.

In 2022, India will observe its Amrut Mahotsav, 75 years of freedom, and the best tribute to martyrs like Khudiram Bose and the freedom fighters, the Gujarat Chief Minister said, will be to ensure that every family has a roof over its head. More pertinently, the houses should have a toilet to give dignity and privacy to women, piped water and electricity. Regretting that sugar factories have shut down in Madhubani, once the sugar bowl of India, and sugarcane farmers are facing great hardships, Narendra Modi said it is high time that things changed in the land of Buddha, Mahavira, and Jaya Prakash Narayan. Indian politics today stands at a crossroads, and we have to choose between stopping price rise, corruption, injustice, and atrocities on women, or between stopping me (Modi). He pointed out that all opposition parties have united in the mission to stop him, and the ball is now in the people’s court.

Despite the presence of coal mines, Bihar is unable to provide development or employment. According to the 2012 figures, of the 8.5 lakh persons registered with the employment exchange, jobs were provided to only 2000 persons. The Saurashtra-to-Silchar national highway conceived by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would have passed through Bihar and triggered development in the State, but once the UPA came to power, the project was thwarted.