Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president J.P. Nadda on Friday lauded the Narendra Modi-led government’s development initiatives while launching the saffron party’s people’s outreach from Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh. Mr. Nadda who was addressing his first public rally in U.P. after receiving extension as the party chief till June 2024, said “India’s self-reliance has increased in all fields including health, education, automobile and IT”. “India has become a giver, not a taker from the world. Today, India has reached the fifth position among world economies, it will reach the fourth position soon,” said Mr. Nadda.
Addressing the public meeting at ITI ground in Ghazipur, Mr. Nadda added, “Under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, the Yogi Adityanath government is ‘HIRA’. ‘H’ stands for highway, ‘I’ stands for information-way, ‘R’ stands for railway and ‘A’ stands for airway. Now waterway has also started.”
Without naming Mukhtar Ansari, a gangster-turned-politician whose brother Afzal Ansari is the Lok Sabha member from Ghazipur, the BJP president asserted that with the advent of the double-engine BJP government, the “terror of gundaraj [rule of goons] and mafiaraj [rule of mafia] in U.P. has ended and rule of law has been established”. “Kidnapping, hooliganism, illegal occupation of government land and poor people’s land were common, but after formation of the BJP government, criminals have lost their courage,” he further said.
The selection of Ghazipur as venue for the first outreach meeting by Mr. Nadda as part of ‘Mission U.P.’ holds significance as the seat is represented by Mr. Ansari, who defeated saffron party heavyweight and present Lieutenant-Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Manoj Sinha by over one lakh votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Ghazipur remained a tough electoral terrain for the saffron party even in the 2022 Assembly election, as it lost all the seven seats in the district and lost five out of nine seats in neighbouring Janupur. The BJP is specifically targeting 14 parliamentary seats represented by Opposition parties in U.P. More such rallies and outreach meetings involving central BJP leaders have been planned in these seats in the coming months.
Speaking on the occasion, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath said people of the State rose above the barriers of caste, creed and religion and chose BJP to bring in development. “U.P. shunned the politics of religion and caste and reposed faith in Prime Minister Modi,” Mr. Adityanath said.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Nadda took part in a felicitation ceremony for ex-servicemen, where he said the Indian Army is considered the most powerful in the world and Indian soldiers have protected people and the border during major crises.
