: Reiterating his election mantra — vote for development — at the southernmost tip of the country here, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said the Centre was working to bring happiness to the lives of poor and not striving to promote his image.
At a public rally here, Mr. Modi said that the Centre was not pasting his photos or stickers on the rice bags being supplied to the States from the Central pool, taking an indirect dig at the ruling AIADMK for promoting its leader Jayalalithaa.
Colachel port project
The Centre was committed to implementing the Rs. 21,000-crore Colachel commercial port project, the preliminary work for which had begun. When the project is implemented, thousands of educated and poor youth would get employment opportunities and the development of the district would also get a boost. The Centre was also keen on widening the highway between Kanyakumari and Trivandrum in the shortest possible time, which would improve the tourism potential of the district manifold, he said.
Focussing on the fishing community, he recalled how the Centre had secured the freedom of five fishermen from Tamil Nadu facing death row in Sri Lanka. He also recalled the efforts taken by the Centre to bring home safely the nurses trapped in the Libyan war zone, the rescue of thousands of workers trapped in Yemen and how after nine months of negotiations Fr. Prem Kumar was rescued from the Taliban militants. “I personally called his family to tell them that he is coming home. Will any Prime Minister call a poor family?” he asked.
The Pradan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana has been launched to provide free LPG connections to women from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families, Mr. Modi said, emphasising that he would personally see to it that five crore women benefitted from the scheme within the next three years.
The Centre had abolished personal interview for the recruitment of Class III and IV posts with a view to eliminating corruption in recruitment, he said.
Mr. Modi campaigned for BJP candidates contesting from Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi districts. Union Minister of State for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan and party’s Tamil Nadu in-charge Muralidhar Rao also spoke.
