Hindustan Times (Patiala)

In last speech of 16th LS, Modi seeks new majority

CLOSING ADDRESS PM says mandate helps India’s image; takes shots at Rahul

- HT Correspond­ent letters@hindustant­imes.com n

Minister Narendra Modi bade goodbye to the 16th Lok Sabha on Wednesday with a speech that mixed good humour with gentle swipes at his rivals, warmly praised the leader of the Opposition, and pitched for a clear majority in the general elections this spring.

Modi, a first-time parliament­arian, shared the credit for all the work done during his term in office with the Opposition. As many as 219 bills were placed in Lok Sabha, of which 203 were passed, including landmark laws against black money and corruption; the House scrapped more than 1,400 outdated laws, hacking through a “jungle” of legislatio­n, Modi said.

In the past five years, he said, India had become the sixth-largest economy in the world and was well on its way to achieving $5 trillion in annual economic output. “There is a lot of confidence in the country now. Major organisati­ons around the world are talking about India. India has made a place for itself in the digital world. We have now become the centre for economic activity with our initiative­s such as Make in India,” Modi said.

The 68-year-old Prime Minister said the world was now sitting up and taking note of India and its achievemen­ts because it had a majority government.

“The world recognises a full majority government. India suffered globally for long due to fractured mandates, it is now taken seriously because of the majority government,” Modi said, as he seeks re-election against an Opposition seeking to build a rainbow coalition to oust the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) from power.

“It [majority government] had a big role to play in our foreign relations,” Modi said, adding that neither he nor external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj could claim credit for India’s enhanced images in the eyes of the world. He credited it to the electorate.“I saw the plaque [at my seat in the Lok Sabha] which had only the names of three prime ministers... Experts with liberal ideologies who give sermons every day will definitely deliberate on this,” Modi said in an apparent dig at the Congress. A visual of the PM’s seat in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday showed three plaques with names of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri, all Congress leaders who have served as the prime minister. Under Modi, the BJP became the first party in 30 years to win a clear majority on its own in the 2014 general election; it won 282 seats in the 543-member lower house.

The Congress under Rajiv Gandhi had been the last party, in the 1984 Lok Sabha polls, to win a commanding majority on its own. Modi said his was the first majority government that belonged to a non-Congress “gotra” (lineage). The PM reminisced about his first term in the Lok Sabha, saying, for one, that he had learned the difference between embracing someone and piling on, an oblique reference to Congress president Rahul Gandhi giving him a hug in the House last year, then following it up with a wink at his colleagues. “I am a first-time MP. I got to know the difference between gale milna and gale parna [hugging and piling on]. I got to know about aankhon ki gustakhiya­an [mischief of the eyes],” Modi said.

I came to learn the difference between hugging and throwing oneself at someone NARENDRA MODI, Prime Minister

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