BJP president Amit Shah on Friday hailed the Modi government for its “historic decisions” of surgical strikes across the Line of Control into Pakistan following the Uri terror attack and demonetisation. “The Opposition is frustrated by the fact that the support of the poor which, for historical reasons, was with some other parties, has now shifted to the BJP and Prime Minister Modi,” he said, addressing the BJP national executive here.
This is the strongest indication yet that demonetisation would be the main plank of the party in the run-up to polls in the five States — Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur and Punjab. Mr. Shah said the BJP would win big in all these States.
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Standing ovation
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Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar, who briefed the media on Mr. Shah’s speech and the proceedings of the national executive, said members of the party’s parliamentary board (the highest decision making body) felicitated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “bold step” in demonetising high denomination notes. “The entire national executive gave a standing ovation to Mr. Modi while he was felicitated,” said Mr. Javadekar.
Mr. Shah said both the surgical strikes by the Army and the decision to demonetise were reflective of the government’s desire to go beyond the “business as usual” model followed by past governments. “We have not been given a mandate like this to just ‘run the government’ but to make a decisive change in the lives of the poor and disadvantaged”
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“With the surgical strikes, we demonstrated that when we said there would be zero tolerance of terror by this government we meant it. With demonetisation, every penny is now accounted for and a mortal blow has been struck on black money and fake currency racket. In fact, so strong a move is this that a big fake currency racketeer from Pakistan committed suicide after hearing of demonetisation,” Mr. Javadekar reported Mr. Shah as saying.
Without naming Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi or any other Opposition leader, Mr. Shah said its criticism of these “historic decisions” of the government stemmed from frustration that the ground had shifted. “One Opposition leader, after the surgical strikes even accused the Prime Minister of ‘ khoon ki dalali ’ [trafficking the blood of our countrymen]. That mode is not known to us, it must be known to people of that party,” Mr. Shah said.
Widening tax base
The BJP chief also linked demonetisation with efforts to widen the tax base to have more money for public spending. “When a majority of your transactions leave a digital fingerprint, tax net will be widened and more money will be available. On an average, over the last 10 years, only around ₹4,10,000 crores to ₹ 4,70,000 crores has been available for development purposes, that will now change,” Mr. Shah said.