Hope has replaced despair, says Modi

​Saharanpur: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday asserted that a mood of development and hope pervaded the country replacing hopelessness that prevailed under the UPA rule as he pitched his government as one dedicated to the poor and farmers which prevented the "loot" of public money.

Addressing the first of his four public rallies here in Uttar Pradesh, which will have assembly polls next year, to mark the second anniversary of his government, Modi reached out to the electorate, calling himself a "UP wala" who cared for the farmers.

He said his government had taken a series of measures to help repay the dues of sugarcane farmers, a politically important constituency in the region, while other governments were not concerned about them.

Recalling that in his address after he was elected the leader of the BJP-led NDA following the Lok Sabha win he had promised his government would be dedicated to the poor, Modi said every decison he had taken ever since was in that direction.

"If you look at my work of two years, you will see one decision after the other was taken to empower the poor to fight poverty, to strengthen the poor against poverty so that they could defeat it. No poor man wants to bequeath poverty to his children. I have always tried to work for the common man," he said.

Development, he said, was the solution to all problems and all other talk was meant to win elections and cater to vote bank politics.
With the NDA dispensation facing criticism over alleged intolerance, Modi said his government's "conscience was clear" and it wanted to develop all sections of society.

Citing Swachh Bharat initiative, Mudra loan scheme, Prime Minister crop insurance scheme, free LPG connections to poor and Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign, he said these programmes were meant to serve everybody, irrespective of caste and religion, while schemes launched earlier were made keeping in mind castes and vote banks. Without naming the UPA government, he attacked it over alleged corruption and flagged his government's "honest" credentials.

"How much money was looted. Now I am in government and I am shocked over it as whether people are given chair to loot public money. I had pledged to stop this. I want to ask you have you ever heard any news that the Modi government had pocketed money? Have even our rivals levelled such allegations? Two years ago nobody had the courage to give their report card to lakhs of people like this," he said.

That is why, Modi said, his government was observing 'vikas parv' (festival of development) and all his ministers would travel across the country to give to the people an account of their work.

Source: PTI