When it comes seeking votes for his party—the BJP—nobody can beat Prime Minister Narendra Modi and he did just that on Saturday in Gujarat while inaugurating 200-bed K.D. Parvadiya Multi Speciality Hospital at Atkot, Rajkot.
Set up at a cost of Rs 40 crore by the powerful Patidar community and managed by Patel Seva Samaj, the hospital has six operation theatres, 10 ventilators, 64 ICU beds and NICU for children. It has a staff of 300. As he inaugurated the hospital where the managing trustee Dr Bharat Boghra said that nobody would go without treatment, even if a person has no money, Modi’s address was nothing less than a political speech. A speech where there was no need for him to “seek votes” in so many words.
Gujarat faces elections for 182 assembly seats by the year and the BJP has been in power for the last 27 years.
Present at the function were all those who matter in the BJP and for the BJP. The function gave the right jumpstart to the saffron party’s election campaign in the Saurashtra region where the Congress performed well in the 2017 assembly elections, aided by the benefits of the Patidar reservation stir of 2015. The region has sizeable Patel vote share.
The BJP has already gained from the resignation of Patidar leader Hardik Patel from the Congress and grapevine has it that Patel is likely to join the BJP in the next few days.
Preferring to deliver majority of his speech in Gujarati, Modi gave an emotional touch and said that it was because of the values of the land of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, values inculcated by the people of Gujarat in him and the education that he has been able to serve the nation. The prime minister said that in the last eight years, he hasn’t left any stone unturned in serving the nation. He went on to claim that even by mistake, he hasn’t done anything wrong that the country or anyone of you have to bow your heads down (in shame).
“You sent me off eight years ago, but your love only increases,” Modi said. He held that the BJP led NDA government has made honest efforts to fulfil the dreams of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel.
Three crore homes for the poor, 10 crore toilets… These, he said, are just not numbers but are efforts towards an India what Bapu (Mahatma Gandhi) wanted.
Having said this, Modi also mentioned that people tend to get double benefit due to double engine Sarkar (BJP-led NDA government at the Centre and BJP government in Gujarat). Indirectly seeking votes for the BJP, Modi said he need not tell the people here that there is nothing like the fact that it is maternal uncle’s home and your mother is present to serve you.
He did not lose the opportunity to criticise the previous UPA government, albeit without naming it. Modi said that before 2014 there was such a government at the Centre that when any project proposal went from Gujarat, it would only see Modi in it and reject it. Modi said the previous government had even “stopped Ma Narmada”. He reminded that he had to sit on fast before the project got clearance. Speaking about the Bullet Train Project, freight corridors, Statue of Unity and expansion of highways, Modi said Gujarat would benefit from it.
MSMEs, according to him, were emerging as a major force. Earlier, nothing grew in Saurashtra except salt, but now other industries are also thriving, he pointed, mentioning ports and tiles. Youth, too, were on his mind and he said that before 2001 there were only nine medical colleges in the state with 1100 seats and now there are 30 medical colleges (both government and private) with 8000 seats. “Do you remember this? Don’t forget and tell your children or else they would not even know,” he said.
Modi said that his aim is to have one medical college not only in each district of Gujarat but to have in each district in the country. One of the genesis of the Patidar Reservation Stir was that poor strata of the Patel community could not bear to pay the fees of professional courses and hence the children were deprived of good education.
“My asset is your blessings,” he said, concluding for blessings so that he continues to serve both the nation and Gujarat.
