Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that he could “gauge the mood of the nation” and that the BJP alone would get at least 370 seats and the NDA would cross the 400-seat mark in the Lok Sabha.
In a speech that went on for more than an hour and a half, on the Motion of Thanks to the President for her address to both Houses of Parliament, Mr. Modi mounted a spirited attack on the Opposition stating that he was convinced that they (Opposition parties) have “lost the courage to contest elections and have resolved to stay on the Opposition benches for a long time”. He said the Congress is destined to sit in the Opposition for several more years, and that the third term of the government was not too far. “At the most 100-125 days are remaining,” he said, referring to the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Blaming the Congress solely for the “present condition” of the entire Opposition, he said, “For several decades you were sitting here [in the Treasury benches], but now you have resolved to stay there [Opposition benches] for several decades. The people will bless you and keep you there. You will achieve greater heights and will be soon seen in the public galleries [of the House]”. The Lok Sabha adopted the Motion of Thanks on the President’s address via a voice vote, following Mr. Modi’s speech.
Apart from slamming the Opposition, Mr. Modi also extolled the Ram Temple consecration, saying that “not only has Bhagvan Ram returned to his home [Ayodhya]” but that the temple would continue to energise the country into the future.
Speaking on dynastic politics, Mr. Modi said that he termed parties dynastic where a particular family takes all the decisions, captures the leadership, and the party serves that family, not families where more than one person is in politics, but as part of a party structure. “Rajnath Singh has no political party of his own,” he said. Mr. Singh’s son Pankaj Singh is an MLA in Uttar Pradesh.
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