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Sabka Vishwas: Need to earn minorities' trust, says PM

Last Updated 25 May 2019, 19:58 IST

Pledging to wed both "national ambitions and regional aspirations" (NARA) as he was elected the leader of the NDA, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday reached out to minorities saying they were "deceived" so far and there was a need to earn their trust.

Modi's comments about the minorities came at an hour-long speech he made in Parliament's Central Hall after the NDA MPs unanimously elected him their leader and just before he drove to Rashtrapati Bhavan to stake claim to form the government.

Soon after he was chosen the leader, he walked to bow before a copy of Constitution kept specially for the function at the dais where veteran BJP leaders L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi and NDA leaders Parkash Singh Badal, Nitish Kumar, Uddhav Thackeray, Ramvilas Paswan and E Palaniswamy among others were seated.

"Minorities have been misled. An imaginary fear has been instilled among them. It would have been good if their education and health had been in focus. In 2019, I expect you to make a dent in this veil of deception, we have to win their trust," he said.

He said, "Now, no one is alien to us and MPs will have to win their hearts. Those who have voted for us are ours, those who did not vote for us also belong to us. We have a lot to do," he said.

Modi's reach out came even as the BJP, which won 303 seats, does not have a single Muslim MP while there is only one Muslim MP from the ruling NDA belonging to LJP in Bihar.

He told MPs they should refrain from giving statements merely for publicity and shun "VIP culture".

On who could get into the Council of Ministers, he said the media has even speculated about some names but he has not yet given a thought to it. He said he was yet to go through details of all the NDA MPs while asking them not to trust media reports in this regard. These are aimed at creating confusion and often put out with "bad intentions".

Modi, who was chosen first as BJP Parliamentary Party leader and then NDA's amid chants of "Modi, Modi", "Bharat Mata ki Jai" and "Vande Mataram", said, "We have worked for sabka saath, sabka vikas (development for everyone), now we have to strive for sabka vishwas (trust)."

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(Published 25 May 2019, 19:18 IST)

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