Bank queues will end all queues: PM
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday slammed the opposition for criticising the centre’s demonetization move and said: “For 70 years people of the country queued up for essential items. This queue (outside banks) is the last queue to end all the queues.”
He asserted that people standing in queues outside banks are ‘honest’ and those who aren’t, “are queuing up outside the houses of the poor so that they could put their black money in their accounts.”
“I want to tell the poor in whose account money has been deposited, “don’t touch that money and ask for proof if they (those who have deposited the money) insist,” he added.
Addressing the BJP’s ‘Parivartan’ rally here, he reiterated that he would continue his fight against corruption, which was the reason behind problems of the country. Over two lakh people from Moradabad and nearby districts attended the rally.
“It (corruption) will not leave the country by itself. It must be forced out. I am fighting to do this. But I am surprised that some people of my country are accusing me,” he said.
“I am fighting this war for you and what will those accusing me do? Are hum to fakir aadmi hain jhola leke chal denge (I am a fakir, will leave with my little belongings,” Modi said.
He said the people are his ‘high command’ and he answers only to them.
On his first visit to the brass hub of the country after becoming Prime Minister, Modi said that he was very skeptical about the visit. “I was skeptical because I couldn’t come to Moradabad in 2014 even after the insistence of local leaders.”
The Prime Minister also talked about poverty and development. “I fought election from UP because this is the biggest state of the country and poverty is prevalent here (in UP). I want to fight poverty of this state and country,” he said.
Pitching for development in Uttar Pradesh, Modi said in order for states like UP, Bihar and Maharashtra to progress, poverty must be eradicated from the grass root level.
He also thanked the people of Uttar Pradesh for voting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in the 2014 general elections.
Though Modi kept away from openly criticising the SP government in the poll- bound state, BJP MP Sanjeev Balyan, who addressed the rally before the PM, warned SP leaders of imprisonment, “I would suggest that the leaders of Samajwadi Party should leave the state before election or we will require additional prisons for them,” he said.
Balyan, along with BJP’s state president Keshav Parasad Maurya, also mentioned Muzaffarnagar, Kairana and Bijnore in their speeches and said that the people of the state will never forget these incidents (riots) and will give a befitting reply to the SP government in the coming elections.
The Moradabad rally, flagged off by BJP president Amit Shah in Saharanpur on November 5, was the Prime Minister’s fourth with first being Ghazipur, second Agra and third Kushinagar. He will also address the rally in Bahraich on December 11 and Kanpur on December 19.
The yatra will stay in Moradabad for two days before leaving for Rampur, and after travelling across all 403 assembly constituencies, the four yatras will culminate in Lucknow on December 24.
The state will go to polls early next year.