TODAY’S QUEUES WILL END ALL QUEUES: PRIME MINISTER MODI ON CASH CHAOS
Says his govt has focused on accountability, removing poverty
I AM FINDING WAYS TO PUT BEHIND BARS THOSE GUILTY OF STASHING THEIR BLACK MONEY INTO THE JAN DHAN ACCOUNTS OF THE POOR, SAYS MODI
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a development pitch to voters in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday, taking credit for bringing electricity to villages and warning people parking their illegal incomes in poor people’s accounts.
The prime minister told an election rally in western UP’s Moradabad that his government had focused on accountability and said eradicating poverty from India wasn’t possible without development in big states such as Uttar Pradesh.
“I came to Moradabad late, but before coming I ensured that your years-long demand for electricity was met,” he told the crowd at his Parivartan rally, reported ANI.
“You, the people are my high command and no one else.”
He took a dig at opposition parties who have attacked the government over the snaking queues outside banks and ATMs since high-denomination notes were scrapped. He said other parties had ensured people stand in queues for ration, for sugar and daily necessities. “You put the country in a queue for 70 years. I have created a queue to end all queues.” The Prime Minister has been at the forefront of the BJP’s election campaign in India’s most populous state that goes to the polls early next year. The saffron party has been out of power in the state for more than a decade and is locked in a tough fight with the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress.
“I promised from the Red Fort that I will bring electricity (in Moradabad). It came before I did... women don’t have to go to cities to process wheat. They don’t have to go to cities to utilise ground water. They have electricity in their villages now,” news channels quoted the prime minister as saying.
Modi also spoke at length against corruption in public life and thanked farmers for continuing to sow winter crops despite the government pulling Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes from circulation three weeks ago, a move that has caused massive hardships in the countryside.
“I am finding ways to put behind bars those guilty of stashing their black money into the jan dhan accounts of the poor,” Modi was quoted as saying by ANI. He asked farmers and poor to not touch any suspicious money in that account. “Dishonest people can’t go to banks now and so they are queuing up outside homes of poor and trying to mislead them.”