Don’t insult industrialists, Modi tells rival parties
Prime Minister launches ₹60,000 crore investment projects in UP
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched projects worth ₹60,000 crore for Uttar Pradesh on Sunday and asked rival parties not to insult industrialists, who played an important role in the country’s development.
The PM used the groundbreaking ceremony for the projects to respond to political criticism over his government being “industry friendly”. “Should we insult industrialists, call them thieves and dacoits? What is this? But, at the same time, the unscrupulous ones would either have to flee the country or spend life in jail,” Modi said.
Responding to the PM’s comments, the Congress’s chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala alleged that the PM’s political career reeked of a “culture of cronyism”.
“Congress doesn’t need certificates. In 60 years of Congress government, Industrial Production in India showed a compound growth rate of 6%. It is 3.3% in May 2018! Difference is- Making Industry Partner in Progress versus making cronies profiteer from exchequer,” Surjewala tweeted. Modi said in Lucknow that the BJP government was working on the principle of ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’, as a result of which Uttar Pradesh was set to become a trillion-dollar economy. “We are not afraid to stand alongside industrialists,” Modi said, adding that even Mahatma Gandhi had stayed with the Birla family.
Welcoming the PM’s statement on industrialists, Mahindra group executive chairman Anand Mahindra tweeted, “A much-needed vote of confidence at a time when only one unfortunate face of industry was being perceived.”
The PM said investments being made in Uttar Pradesh would generate 200,000 jobs.
“I have urged industry groups to form brainstorming teams to think of ways to increase corporate investments in agriculture,” he said. “India is fast becoming a hub of mobile manufacturing and is ranked number two in this sector and UP is leading the change. There are more than 50 mobile manufacturing units in the state,” he added.