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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday led his government and party’s celebrations to mark the completion of one year of the National Democratic Alliance government with a “letter to the people”.
He listed how his government has achieved a turnaround, detailing the steps taken to revive the economy and for the welfare of the poor.
Modi said people’s expectations were “high” and there was “much more to be done”.
Senior ministers of the Modi government fanned out across India to spread the message. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah held a media conference in Delhi and addressed a public rally in Karnal, Haryana. Rajnath Singh was in Kolkata, Arun Jaitley in Gujarat, Nitin Gadkari in Patna, Ravi Shankar Prasad in Bengaluru and Smriti Irani in Amethi to talk about government policies.
The prime minister (PM) and his ministers also took to social media, tweeting with the hashtag #ek saal anek shuruaat (first year, innumerable beginnings), to spread the message of the government’s achievements. The PM’s official (@PMOIndia) and personal (@narendramodi) Twitter handles sent out a series of tweets on how the government had improved key indicators from the last years of the United Progressive Alliance government: More roads, increased power generation, rise in foreign investments and improved industrial production, among others, were tweeted.
On the BJP’s core agenda — constructing a Ram temple in Ayodhya and the repeal of Article 370 — Shah said the party required 370 members of Parliament (MPs), or two-thirds majority, to implement its agenda. “We still do not have the majority needed for (executing) core issues,” he said. The BJP president said the party would organise 4,413 public meetings until June 1, and party workers would try and visit 80 million households by August.
Modi called on President Pranab Mukherjee and Vice-President M Hamid Ansari. He also met officers of the Prime Minister’s Office, describing them as Team PMO. In the evening, the PM launched a 24x7 Doordarshan Kisan channel for farmers. He also paid a visit to the BJP headquarters to meet its office staff.
In his letter, Modi said he had devoted every moment of every day to fulfil the honour given to him by the people of being the pradhan sevak or servant. Modi said his government took over at a time “when confidence in the India story was waning” and “unabated corruption and indecisiveness had paralysed the government”.
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He said his government systematically addressed challenges — runaway prices were immediately brought under control, the economy was rejuvenated, auction of natural resources was made transparent, firm steps were taken against black money, changes in government work culture were implemented and building the spirit of Team India with the states. “Most importantly, we have been able to restore trust in the government.” The letter also listed measures such as building toilets, pension scheme for labourers and universalising the banking system to farmers hit by unseasonal rains.Shah said the Modi government was a “visible government” unlike the previous one. He said the dignity of the Prime Minister’s Office has been restored under Modi. The BJP president said those who wanted the names of people with unaccounted money in foreign banks disclosed were “counsel” for those with black money, as disclosing the names violate international treaties.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Modi’s one-time potential rival, also blogged on the completion of a year of the BJP-led government in Delhi. “He (Modi) has more selfies than all the ministers in his Cabinet put together…. What the people voted for was selfless leadership and what they have got is selfie leadership,” Kumar said, adding that was how it typified “more style over substance”. He said any average person, a farmer or a housewife or a jobless youth, can easily tell that the government did not deliver.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) also took to Twitter with the hashtag #ek saal bura haal (first year brings much misery).
