Union Home Minister Amit Shah elucidated the feats of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and attacked Madhya Pradesh ex-chief minister Kamal Nath, while seeking support of people of Chhindwara for mega wins of BJP in 2023 Assembly polls and 2024 Lok Sabha polls on Saturday.
This was Shah’s maiden poll meeting in Chhindwara, which is considered a bastion of MP Congress chief Kamal Nath as he was elected nine times to Lok Sabha from the constituency and all seven MLAs in the district are from Congress, too. Even most of the local bodies have Congress majority and Chhindwara Municipal Corporation has a Congress mayor, Vikram Ahake – a tribal youth.
Shah’s public meeting was named ‘Mahavijay Udghosh Jansabha’, with the BJP calling it the platform for proclamation of a massive win for BJP in both Assembly and LS polls .
The Congress, meanwhile, shared videos claimed to be from the public meeting, showing people leaving the venue in hordes even as Shah’s speech was mid-way. Congress media cell chief said that Shah was quite sensible and must have understood the meaning of this exodus. The Congress also alleged that the BJP was disrupting developmental work in Chhindwara.
Shah started his speech by enumerating the various steps taken by the Modi government for the ‘honour of tribal, backward class’ and ‘welfare of poor people’. He mentioned that the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda was now celebrated as Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas (tribal pride day), a daughter from a poor tribal family (Droupadi Murmu) was made president of India and Modi gave constitutional status to the National OBC Commission.
Giving numbers of welfare measures for the poor, Shah said that lives of 80 crores people were changed in nine years, with bank accounts for 60 crores people, toilets for 10 crores, domestic gas connections for 13 crores, PM Housing for 3 crores, free treatment under Ayushman scheme for 60 crores, free COVID-19 vaccine for 130 crores and 5 kg of free ration per month for all poor people. “This could be done only by Modiji,” Shah said repeatedly.
While attacking Nath, he said that the people of MP gave him one opportunity (2018 Assembly election win), but what did he do? “He should be accountable for what he did (when in government). Let alone doing anything new, he merely looted the resources created by the earlier Shivraj Singh Chouhan governments through corruption. Kamal Nath just promises, but fulfills nothing. No one got unemployment allowance, senior citizens’ pension was not hiked, many pro-people schemes like Sambal (subsidized power scheme), teerth-darshan (pilgrimage for senior citizens) and others were closed down,” Shah claimed.
He also said that Nath failed to keep the promises of opening a sugar factory in Satpura, matches factory in Harrai and the Pench thermal power station.
On the other hand, the BJP government gave Rs 3,400 crores budget for Chhindwara (duration not specified), provided irrigation facility in 1.26 lakh hectare land, constructed 30 roads worth Rs 100 crores, doubled railway tracks to Nagpur and Mandla and so on.
Shah then came to the popular actions of the Modi government to mention that Section 370 was abolished from Jammu and Kashmir ‘to make it a part of India’, surgical strike on Pakistan by entering its territory and almost total eradication of militancy. “Only Modi ji could provide security, ensure prosperity and welfare of poor people in the country,” he said.
Shah finally said that he did not want to talk for a long time, but say that the region Chhindwara had given victory to BJP very few times, but now he wanted the people to resolve to make the BJP win in all seven Assembly seats, Chhindwara LS seat in 2024, form a BJP government with absolute majority and make Modi ji PM again in 2024.
Chhindwara not fiefdom of Nath: Chouhan
Earlier, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan elucidated the works done by Shah as Union home minister, saying that the person who removed the blemish of triple talaq, abolished Section 370 from Jammu and Kashmir and eradicated terrorism and naxalism had come to Chhindwara to proclaim mega-victory for BJP.
“Your guidance and message will provide new consciousness and new energy to the workers across the state for the fulfillment of the resolution of victory.”
The CM attacked the Congress and Kamal Nath, saying that even before Shah entered Chhindwara, the Congress was running scared. “Chhindwara is not the fiefdom of Kamal Nath. He only utters lies, but now this political juggling will not work. Kamal Nath did injustice to every section. Only the BJP government has done development work in Chhindwara. He is not Kamal Nath, he is a hypocrite and a liar. He committed the sin of taking away the rights of the poor by stopping public welfare schemes and destroyed the entire state. The BJP government is taking Madhya Pradesh forward on the path of development.”
State BJP president V.D. Sharma welcomed Shah and said that he wanted to underline that Chhindwara was not the stronghold of any individual but of the beneficiaries of various welfare schemes of the BJP government. “Today, from the land of Chhindwara, I assure Shah ji that in the coming assembly elections 2023 and Lok Sabha elections 2024, the Bharatiya Janata Party will achieve a mega victory.”
