Over the last nine years, Prime
Minister Narendra Modiji’s popularity is growing by leaps and bounds. Owing to
the various developmental works started by him for the welfare of the people,
he has managed to strike a connect with people across the country. Naturally,
his opponents are bound to get affected by his growing popularity. These
include Modiji’s political opponents and the intellectuals and a section of the
media. It’s beyond their capacity to assess the reasons behind Modiji ‘s
growing popularity and his vital connection with last citizen in the country.
And then they started spreading a false narrative hoping that people will
believe their theory and that Modiji will fall for their tactics. But every
time they try doing it, they fall flat on their faces.
Time and again, the Opposition
has failed in its attempt to trap both Modiji and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Still, unfortunately they haven’t learnt a lesson. Members from the Opposition
believe that Modiji’s clean image in politics is the reason for his growing
popularity, and if this image is tarnished, they will manage to defeat him in
the elections. It may be recalled that when industrialists Nirav Modi and Mehul
Choksi had fled from India, the Opposition had left no stone unturned to use it
against Modiji and they grilled him on this issue on various occasions in
public domain. At that time, the Congress, the Left parties, their supporters,
the intellectuals and the political analysts had launched a campaign against
Modiji. They spread a false narrative that Modi government was protecting both
Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. It was only when the Modi government got
properties of these businessmen auctioned off to recover their overdue loans by
showing absolutely no mercy, is when people realised how baseless the
allegations were.
And when they realised that they
were fighting a lost battle, Congress’ prince Rahul Gandhi and his supporters
shifted their focus to the Rafale aircraft procurement deal. They alleged that
there were irregularities in the purchase of the Rafale aircraft. At that time,
Rahul Gandhi had accused the Modi government for showing favouritism to Anil
Ambani during the Rafale deal. They felt glad that they had finally managed to
trap the Modi government. The matter went right up to the Supreme Court. After
the Supreme Court verified all the documents submitted by the Central
Government, the apex court gave a clean chit to the government and said it
found no irregularities in the NDA government’s decision -making process to
purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets .Once again, the Opposition failed to succeed
in tarnishing government’s image.
It is interesting to see
Congressmen talking and exposing people for scams because, in fact, the
Congress has had a vast history of scams, right from the Nagarwal case of 1970s
to the Mundada scam in the Life Insurance Corporation that had taken place
during the tenure of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, followed by the Bofors scam and
later the coal mining scam that took place during the 10-year tenure of
Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister.
Recently, while replying to the motion of thanks on the
President’s address to parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modiji read out couplets
of Hindi satirist Kaka Hathrasi in the Lok Sabha. “Aaga-peecha dekh kar, kyon
hote gamgin, jaisi jiski bhavna, vaisa dikhe scene (why be sad looking here and
there, one will view a scene according to one’s perspective).” He had said that
this couplet of Kaka Hathrasi aptly describes Congress’ current status. Rahul
Gandhi and the other Opposition members are still too naïve and are yet to
clear their Kindergarten in politics. It is not easy to corner Narendra Modiji.
And hence Congress makes failed attempts to unnecessarily blow-up things out of
proportion.
Over the last few years, the
Opposition’s modus operandi has remained the same – without considering the
base reason and background of Modiji’s growing popularity, before every
election they make baseless accusations with the intent to tarnish his image.
But it does not affect the common citizen because Modiji has already helped
them through the various welfare schemes. Schemes like Pradhan Mantri Awas
Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Kisan Maandhan Yojana,
Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana are some of the welfare schemes through
which funds get directly deposited in the bank accounts of the beneficiaries
through the DBT scheme. Over Rs 27 lakh crore has been deposited by the Modi
government in the bank accounts of the beneficiaries of the various schemes
over the last 8 years.This was something new for Indians who otherwise were
used to frequently visiting government offices to get their benefits from
welfare schemes of government. Also, to receive benefit of government schemes,
citizens would need to visit different offices, adequately satisfy the
concerned government officials, brokers and the middlemen. It was for the first
time during the Modi government that the citizens got funds transferred
directly to their bank accounts without having to visit any offices. Naturally,
people developed a direct connect with Prime Minister Narendra Modiji.
Even during the pandemic-induced
lockdown, when the economy had collapsed, there were crores of people, leading
a hand-to-mouth life, who were struggling for the basic needs. At that time,
Prime Minister Narendra Modiji launched the Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana and made
sure that no one slept on an empty stomach. As a result, the hitherto marginalised
underprivileged sections of the society entered the mainstream of development
as they received help from the various government welfare schemes without
spending a single penny. And that is the reason why citizens look up to
Narendra Modiji as their leader whereas during the Congress rule, the benefits
of the different government welfare schemes were siphoned off by the middlemen
and it never reached the actual needy. That was the reason for Congress losing
out on its credibility. Most importantly , one must not forget that the
mother-son duo (Sonia and Rahul Gandhi) is currently out on bail in the
National Herald case.
The common man does not raise his
voice against everything happening around and one must not mistake his silence
to his ignorance. The common citizen is in fact, well-informed and is aware
about the credibility of everybody. They do not believe in the false and
baseless allegations. And hence, the Opposition needs to prepare themselves
thoroughly before accusing Modiji and his government. No matter how hard they
try, they will never realise what makes Prime Minister Narendra Modiji a
people’s leader and why people feel connected with him.The same is happening in
the Adani case.
(Article Pre-Published in Times of India Online – 13 Feb. 2023)
Keshav Upadhye, Chief Spokesperson
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