Accusing the erstwhile Congress governments of pursuing “vote-bank politics”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday took potshots at the Nehru-Gandhi family as he reached out to the numerically significant Nishad community in Uttar Pradesh, launching solar-powered boats for plying on the Ganges.
“India has launched seven satellites to augment the GPS system. With the kind of politics going on in our country and massive work being done, it may came to our mind that let’s name it [the solar-powered boat project] after [RSS icons] Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay or Shayma Prasad Mukherjee,” Mr. Modi said.
“You have already seen how many schemes are named after one family. We also felt tempted to name the project after those who belonged to us. But this Modi is made of a different stuff. I named it Naavik (boatman). I did not name it after any of my family members or any leader. I have given a name, which gives immortality to the fishermen community,” Mr. Modi said.
Launching 11 solar-powered ‘e-boats’ at the Assi Ghat, the Prime Minister said the step was in line with his government’s focus on making long-term interventions to empower the poor in their fight against poverty and to climb up the ladder unlike earlier.
“Unfortunately, politics in our country took a direction in which policies were always made to strengthen vote-bank. The focus was that the vote-bank should remain strong, irrespective of whether the poor, the citizens of the country, get empowered or not or the country is strengthened or not,” he said. “Earlier, when something was talked about our Nishad brothers, the price of diesel was brought down by one rupee or so in the hope that they will cast their vote in favour [of the party]. But we have made schemes that empower the poor to fight and defeat poverty themselves. We are working in that direction,” the Prime Minister said, listing a number of other schemes.
‘My govt. for the poor’ Reaching out to the backward fishermen and boatmen communities (kevat, nishad, machchuara) and addressing them as “brothers”, Mr. Modi said his government was “for the poor”.
Earlier, speaking in Ballia, where he launched a Rs. 8,000-crore scheme to provide free LPG connections to five crore poor families, the Prime Minister hit out at erstwhile Congress-led governments, saying that most policies under their dispensation were made keeping the ballot box in mind and not for development or poverty alleviation.
