Shah compares Modi to Patel, Ambedkar on his 67th birthday

NEW DELHI: BJP president Amit Shah on Sunday included Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the same bracket as Sardar Patel and BR Ambedkar, saying he started India’s economic integration after Patel and Ambedkar achieved territorial and social unification.

Lavishing praise on Modi on his 67th birthday, Shah said the PM’S life in many ways was a “personification of the spirit of India” and claimed his sensitivity towards the aspirations of the poor had led to “historic poverty alleviation initiatives taking shape at a scale unheard of in the history” of India.

Under the Modi government, Shah said, honest taxpayers, a majority of whom belonged to the middle class, felt they were valued following crackdowns against black money and corruption through various measures, including demonetisation and the Benami law. “India remembers Sardar Patel for the territorial integration of our nation and we recall the role of Babasaheb Ambedkar in our social integration. Through initiatives starting from the Jan Dhan Yojana to the GST, Narendra Bhai has set the ball rolling for the economic integration of India,” Shah said in a blog. Targeting the PM’S critics, he said Modi had ruffled several feathers by his action against the corrupt.

Recalling his decades-long association with Modi, he said the PM had never celebrated his birthday and added that service or ‘sewa’ was the best way to mark the occasion. Modi’s heart, he said, “beats for the poor, downtrodden, marginalised and the farmers of India”. Shah added that the PM’S deep concern for their welfare had motivated him to immerse himself in nation building from a very young age.