Making Full Road

the The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2024, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Virendra Kumar said the communities will get the benefits of so many schemes with the passing of the bills.

“We do not do vote bank politics but try to strengthen the weaker section of the society,” he stated.

country, he said, adding that he chose “rashtraneeti” over “rajneeti” by not releasing the white paper at that time as it would shaken people’s confidence in the country’s abilities.

The white paper would have served him politically but he chose national interests over politics, he said.

His government has rescued the country from very dire straits to take it to this position, he said, asserting there was never such positive sentiments about India’s abilities and success as being seen now.

A virtuous cycle has begun as the country’s growth rate and exports are consistently high and its fiscal deficit and current account deficit are declining.

“It’s a time when our productive investment is at a record high and inflation is in control,” he said, adding that it is also a time when the number of critics is at an all-time low.

His government’s interim budget has drawn all-round praise for shunning populism, he said.

Modi asserted that he keeps far away from the cheap politics of spending public money extravagantly for a few votes.

Attacking the previous Congress governments, he said the slogan of “garibi hatao” was raised for seven decades but poverty did not decline. Whereas an industry in the name of removing poverty cropped up and people enriched themselves by offering suggestion from air-conditioned room on how to do that, he said.

“For years, they debated over wine and cheese on the formula to remove poverty but it did not decline,” he said, asserting that when a poor person’s son in him became the prime minister in 2014, he shut down that industry.

His government lifted 25 crore people out of poverty, he noted.

In a swipe at political parties offering free electricity in the states ruled by them, he said without elaborating that their handling of the issue would bring ruins and cited his government’s programme for rooftop solar power to assert that this will help people immensely.

In many sectors more work has been done in the last 10 years than in the previous decades since independence, the prime minister said.

More than 650 km metro tracks were laid since 2014 while it was only 250 km before that.

Tap water reached only 3.5 crore households till 2014 but his government’s Jal Jeevan Mission has taken it to 10 crore houses, he said.

Over 40,000 km rail tracks have been electrified in the 10 years of his government while the figure was only