Days after the V. Narayanasamy government fell in Puducherry, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday that it had failed to cooperate with the Centre in implementing schemes and in funds utilisation.
At a public meeting held here, he said that while people voted for the Congress in 2016 with hopes and aspirations, the party leaders tried to please the high command. “I came here three years ago. Now, I could see more happiness among the people because of two reasons. One is due to the development works I inaugurated this morning... The second is the removal of the Congress government,” he said.
Citing the video of a wrong translation made by Mr. Narayanasamy during Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s recent visit, Mr. Modi said that instead of telling the truth, “he lied to his own leader and the nation”. (Mr. Narayanasamy had subsequently said he had indeed visited the region where the woman complained of lack of attention). “It is in the culture of the Congress to spread lies,” the Prime Minister said.
Mr. Modi was confident of the NDA forming a government in the Union Territory after the Assembly election. “Such a government will be people’s government and the high command will be the people. I want to see the UT [the Union Territory] become the BEST [business hub, education hub, spiritual hub and tourism hub].” The NDA government would focus on the coastal development and revive the cooperative sector to enhance the lot of women, he said.
Mr. Modi said the Congress had bagged “several medals in spreading lies”. “The party follows our colonial master’s policy of divide and rule. Sometimes they pit one region against the other and at other times one community against another. They are the gold, silver and bronze medallist in spreading lie,” he said.
Referring to Mr. Gandhi’s statement on the need to create a separate ministry for fisheries, Mr. Modi said that in May 2019 itself, a Ministry of Fisheries was constituted by the NDA government. In the last two years, the budgetary allocation for the Ministry had gone up by 80%. “The credit for constituting a Ministry for Tribal Affairs also goes to the NDA government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee,” he said.
The Congress “will never pass an opportunity to call others anti-democratic,” he said, adding the party should look in the mirror to understand the reality. “Panchayat elections were held in Ladakh, and recently in Gujarat. Even after the Supreme Court directed that the civic bodies elections be held in the Union Territory, the Congress government had not conducted them. But the party calls others anti-democratic,” he said
Nominated legislator and BJP Puducherry president V. Saminathan and former Minister A. Namassivayam spoke at the meeting.
