JOIN USAt a BJP function organised to celebrate Narendra Modi’s electoral success, the ecstatic Gujarat chief minister said that he strongly criticised the prime minister at the National Development Council (NDC) meeting held earlier in the day for pushing the country to a point of pessimism as the UPA lacks vision and strategy.
After attending the NDC meet, Modi came to the BJP headquarters at 11 Ashok Road in the evening. Interestingly, BJP chief Nitin Gadkari, the only top central leader present at the function, not only garlanded Modi but also praised the Gujarat success story. This prompted muted discussion in the gathering, with a few of them arguing whether Gadkari was doing this to mend his differences with Modi or if it was pure emotion seeing one of his chief ministers doing so well.
Though Modi had met veteran leader L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj and others before coming to the party headquarters, other leaders like Arun Jaitley, Venkiah Naidu and M M Joshi were missing from the function. Other BJP ruled state chief ministers, including Raman Singh and Shivraj Singh Chauhan, were also not spotted, while Prakash Javadekar, Balbir Punj and Chandan Mitra were the noticeable faces seen on the dais.
Modi sarcastically remarked how the entire nation was making a joint effort to push the nation’s revised average annual growth rate by just 0.3 percent. “Last year, the planning commission had pegged the annual growth rate at 9 per cent. Since they could not achieve the target, it was revised to 7.9 per cent. This time they have stopped thinking of 9 per cent. Now they believe the achievable target is about 8 per cent. So such a big country was sitting to finds ways in which we can achieve 0.3 per cent,” the Hindutva posterboy told the gathering. Taking a dig at the UPA government, he drew comparison between the growth rate of country and Gujarat. The growth rate of Gujarat is 11 per cent, he remarked even as the crowd chanted “PM, PM”. Modi also told the gathering that “the government has no vision, strategy and political will for youth which accounts for 65 per cent of the total population.
“The only hope this country has is due to achievements of some states,” he claimed.