Opposition leaders coming together to save themselves — Modi

Cuttack, May 26 (IANS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday attacked the opposition unity, saying the corrupt leaders are coming together “not to save the country but to save themselves”, making an apparent attack on Congress President Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi.
“Due to the commitment of this government against black money and corruption, people who are out on bail in the INR 5,000-crore corruption case and many others involved in other corruption cases have come together on the same platform,” Modi said addressing a rally here on the occasion of completion of four years of his government.
He was apparently referring to Gandhis taking bail in the National Herald case and opposition leaders coming together in Bengaluru during the Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy’s swearing-in ceremony.
“As we promised four years ago about zero tolerance towards corruption, four former Chief Ministers are behind bars,” Modi said.
The Prime Minister also said that his is a “committed government” instead of being a “confused government”. Modi said that in the last four years, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has become the party from Panchayat to Parliament.
He alleged that the opposition leaders want to destabilise the current government, “but people know everything”.
Taking a dig at the opposition, the Prime Minister said: “The people who try to confuse the people for power can’t bring back black money, neither they can fight against corruption.”
Reminding the gathering of the corruption cases four years ago, Modi said: “People need to remember the situation of the country four years ago.
This is important to remember what a family did for the country that remained in power for 48 years.” “How people can forget the cases of corruption in the previous government due to which the image of the country was maligned across the globe?” he said.
Attacking the Gandhis for guiding former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on every key decisions, Modi said: “They believed in the development of their party as against the development of the nation. They remote-controlled the Prime Minister and issued directions to several ministers on email.
The Prime Minister also stressed that the President (Ram Nath Kovind), Vice President (M. Venkaiah Naidu) and the “Pradhan Sewak” (Prime Servant) of the country come from very humble and poor background.
“We have seen the days of poverty … we were not born with silver spoons. In fact, we did not see the spoon in our initial days,” Modi said, in an apparent jibe at Rahul Gandhi.
The Prime Minister also said that in last four years, the investigating agencies have carried out searches at over 3,000 locations and unearthed over Rs 53,000 crore of the undisclosed money. Modi claimed that the government seized properties worth over INR 3,500 crore after the Benami Properties Bill was passed by the government.
Modi said about half of the country’s population is deprived of basic needs and that most of the schemes were only meant for the upper layer of the society.
He also highlighted several schemes which his government launched for the people, including the Jan-Dhan Yojana, Mudra Yojana, Ujjwala Yojana, agriculture insurance scheme and several others that have changed the life of poors and farmers across the country.