M A I N   N E W S

Keep winning streak, Modi tells BJP
PM accuses Congress, Mulayam’s SP of indulging in vote-bank politics
Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service

Different and tough yardsticks are being applied to gauge the government’s performance. Those who have not done anything for 60 years are asking for our account of 60 days. Narendra Modi, prime minister PM’s view on WTO stand Modi likened his government’s recent stand at the WTO to the nuclear tests at Pokharan during former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s regime He said for the BJP, the country’s prestige was more important than what the world thought of the party

New Delhi, August 9
As the BJP leadership heaped praise on its new president Amit Shah and the NDA government’s 60-day achievements, the message for party delegates at the first National Council meeting after assuming power at the Centre was that the winning pace had to be maintained.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Shah the Man of the Match, former BJP president Rajnath Singh referred to him as captain of the party’s spectacular Lok Sabha win.

Modi led a veiled attack on the Congress, accusing it and the ruling Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh of continuing to practise vote-bank politics to divide the society and not doing anything substantial for the country in the past 60 years. Shah made an appeal for a Congress-free India.

The outgoing BJP president Rajnath Singh said the BJP was the only cadre and ideology-based party in the country. “The Congress has neither ideology nor cadre,” Singh said.

Modi’s indirect attack on Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi for his comments that communal clashes in Uttar Pradesh were “artificially engineered” was followed by a direction to cadres “to play a crucial role in ensuring communal harmony and national unity so that the nation moves forward”.

"Those who have suffered a massive defeat in the elections are still not able to desist from engaging in old vote-bank politics. They are engaged in disturbing the social fabric," he said.

"The BJP never accepts incidents (of violence) which are taking place in the country. Peace, unity and harmony are the pre-requisites for progress and there will be no compromise on this," he added. Gandhi, who stormed the Well of the Lok Sabha demanding a debate on the rising communal violence, termed violence in UP "artificially and deliberately engineered", triggering a war of words between the two parties, both accusing each other of indulging in “communal politics”. Modi talked of how "different and tough yardsticks were being applied” to gauge BJP’s performance. "Those who have not done anything for 60 years are asking for our account of 60 days", he said attacking the Congress again.

He likened his government’s recent stand at the WTO to the nuclear tests at Pokharan during former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s regime, saying for the BJP the country’s prestige and the welfare of the poor were more important than what the world thought of the party.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley tore into the Congress, alleging the rival party’s policies were a "liability" when it was in power. Even as an Opposition it was attempting to "create obstacles" so that the NDA government cannot achieve progress, he said.