Rae Bareli dev ignored by previous govts
Claiming that the country would never forgive the Congress for its anti-army attitude, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the main opposition party was disturbed over NDA government’s performance because the latter inked defence deals without involving people like Quattrocchi or Christian Michel.
“Congress’ history in defence deals is the involvement of people like Mama Quattrocchi or Christian Michel who was recently brought to the country,” Modi said while addressing his maiden public meeting in Rae Bareli, the parliamentary constituency of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
Earlier, he flagged off the new rake of rail coaches and dedicated to the nation projects worth around Rs 1,100 crore for the district on Sunday.
“During the UPA rule, foreigners played a pivotal role in defence deals. There are two facets before the country — one is of the government which is making every possible effort to augment the strength of defence forces, and the second is of those forces which want to weaken the country at every cost,” he said.
The Prime Minister said people were witnessing that “the Congress is aligning with those forces which do not want our defence forces to become stronger”.
Modi also attacked Congress over Rafale deal and quoted a verse of Ram Charit Manas which says that truth prevails. “People tried to spread lies for personal gains but you know truth always stays while lies have short shelf life,” he said.
Modi also made an indirect attack on Congress president Rahul Gandhi saying: “Some people love to live with lies. Some people have made this the guiding principal in their life. For such leader, everyone from armed forces — officer to Raksha Mantri — and now even the Supreme Court is a liar.”
“The country will neither forget nor forgive previous government’s attitude towards our Army. For us, the country comes first and not the party,” Modi said while lauding the Indian Army serving on the borders and even paid tribute to martyrs on the anniversary of the 1971 Indo-Pak war.
Referring to the AgustaWestland chopper case, he said: “We have brought one uncle Christian Michel to India a few days back.”
The 54-year-old British national is one of the three alleged middlemen being investigated by the CBI over charges of organising bribes for Indian politicians and bureaucrats to push for the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland chopper deal. “Everyone is seeing as to how to save the accused the Congress had sent its advocate to the court,” Modi charged.
The PM also ridiculed the farm loan waiver promise of the Congress during the Assembly polls in five states and alleged that in Karnataka the Congress failed to deliver on its promise and the farmers’ unrest was intensifying.
“The Congress didn’t fulfill its promise to Karnataka farmers. They promised loan waivers, but according to a recent report, not even 1,000 farmers got this benefit in over six months,” he said.
He also blamed the previous UPA governments for not implementing the Swaminathan report. “We had implemented the said report and are paying Rs 60,000 crore as a remunerative prices of 22 crops to farmers,” he added.
He ripped apart the Congress party for ignoring development in Rae Bareli. “The Central government is committed to the development of Rae Bareli. But, earlier governments neglected it,” he said.
Announcing that the Modern Rail Coach Factory (MRCF) will be the biggest rail coach manufacturing factory in the world, the PM said that the factory was sanctioned in 2007 and was built in 2010. “For four years, it worked at a slow speed. The factory that was supposed to make new coaches was never allowed to work at its full capacity,” he added.
During his over one-hour-long speech, the PM had to stop for a moment when some youths raised slogans.
