PM Modi asks BJP MPs, MLAs to desist from commenting on every issue

“Designated spokespersons of the party will comment on issues as and when necessary. If everyone comments on everything then the conversation around issues change, this harms the country.”

FILE PHOTO: India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks with the media inside the parliament premises on the first day of the budget session, in New Delhi, India, January 29, 2018. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi/File photo

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday exhorted BJP MPs and MLAs to associate themselves with the larger interest of the country rather than pushing for individual interests, and asked them not to speak out of turn to the media on “every issue”. He was addressing them via video chat through his personal NaMo App.

“The levers of governance should be moved for issues of larger public interest keeping the principle of ‘

sarvajan hitaaya, sarvajan sukhaaya ’ (that which benefits everyone will bring happiness to everyone) rather than to push individual interests. If you push individual interests you will find the levers of governance stuck, whereas it will move for larger interests,” he said, in a significant statement to his partymen a year before the general elections.

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That warning was also accompanied by another advice, that partymen should desist from commenting on “every socio-political or cultural matter”, from which the media would report the most catchy “masala bits”; he added that they should also desist from blaming the media later for doing so.

“The media is doing its job, you should do yours of serving the people. Designated spokespersons of the party will comment on issues as and when necessary. If everyone comments on everything then the conversation around issues change, this harms the country, the party and hurts our own personal image. In the last few years I saw that in the 16th Lok Sabha there were 8-10 MPs from our party who had this habit but after I spoke to them they desisted from it and the party was spared any humiliation in public as a result,” he said.

Prime Minister Modi’s outreach to party MPs and MLAs was also in the manner of a pep talk as the party gears up for a tough electoral year, with Karnataka going to polls in May, and Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh going to polls in November-December. “There are those who feel that our party came to power because of the mistakes committed by the Congress. That is not true. Our party, its leaders and workers have connected with a large swathe of the country consistently, over many years. We have broken the myths impeding our party’s expansion, we were called a ‘brahmin-baniya’ party, of the cities, of just north India. We have broken all those myths. We have the largest number of Dalit MPs, tribal MPs and a biggest chunk of OBC elected representatives. We reflect the aspirations of a large part of the country,” he said.

He also took questions from various MPs and MLAs, on various government programmes. Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan came in for some praise from Mr. Modi over the implementation of the Ujjawala yojana of free cooking gas connections to BPL households, as did former Ahmedabad MP Harin Pathak — who was overlooked for a ticket despite being a seven-term MP in 2014 in favour of Paresh Rawal — for his work providing health care in Ahmedabad.

Prime Minister Modi will be holding a similar interaction with party workers from Karnataka on April 26.