2019 fight between development and chaos, says Modi
The Congress is fighting a battle for its existence, a shared hatred for him is the sole glue in the “united” opposition, and the next election will be a choice between governance and development on one side and chaos on the other, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in an interview to Swarajya magazine.
He said a Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) type “non-ideological and opportunistic coalition” was “the best guarantee for chaos” and spoke about the internal contradictions within the proposed grand alliance to suggest that “such instability adversely impacts the growth trajectory of our nation”. In Karnataka, after the recent assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party emerged the single largest party with 104 seats in the 224-member assembly, but the Congress (79 seats) forged a partnership with the JD(S) by agreeing to make the latter’s HD Kumaraswamy the chief minister.
The opposition alliances are not motivated by national good, but they are about personal survival and power politics, the prime minister said. “They have no agenda except to remove Modi,” he said in the interview.
The Prime Minister was asked
NEWDELHI:
if he is worried about the formation of a grand alliance of opposition parties, much like the groupings that came together in 1977 and 1989 to unseat the then ruling dispensations.
Modi described as “flawed” the comparison between today’s grand alliance and that of 1977 or 1989. “In 1977, the common motive of the alliance was to protect our democracy that was under great threat due to the Emergency. In 1989, the recordbreaking corruption of Bofors had hurt the entire nation,” he said.
The prime minister said there was no grand alliance, but a grand race in the opposition for the prime minister’s post. “The whole focus is power politics, not people’s progress,” he said. “How long will the dislike and mistrust these parties and leaders have for each other keep them together?”