Will return in 2019 with bigger numbers, says PM Narendra Modi

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed confidence that BJP would win the Lok Sabha election next year by a bigger margin than in 2014, and dismissed “Mahagathbandhan” as a failed idea which cannot succeed because people want a strong and decisive government at Centre that can deliver results.

In an email interview with TOI, the PM also strongly condemned mob lynchings as a crime irrespective of motives, vowed to protect honest business and punish the corrupt and asserted that his government would keep its promise to complete the process of updating the National Register of Citizens in Assam.

“A non-ideological alliance of desperate and disparate groups is not a ‘Mahagathbandhan’ but political adventurism,” Modi said about the proposed grand alliance of opposition parties. Modi said his platform for the next national election would be “development, fast development and development for all”.

“We will definitely get more seats than we got the last time and I am confident that we will break all records of seats won by NDA in the past.” He took on Congress over the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, saying its vote-bank politics prevented it from implementing accords the party itself concluded in 1972 and 1982 when it was in office. “Congress is guilty of criminal negligence on this count,” he said.

On the concerns being raised over incidents of mob violence, including cow vigilantism, he underlined that these incidents need to be condemned in the strongest voice. “My government is fully committed to upholding the rule of law and protecting the life and liberty of every citizen... No person can, under any circumstances, take the law into his or her hand and commit violence,” he said. He said the government is working actively against economicabsconders, and the recent law to confiscate their properties will deliver results “Anyone who fraudulently takes public money and absconds shall not be spared,” he said.

On Congress’ allegations of corruption in Rafale deal, he said the party had concocted falsehoods and was repeating them. “It is a government-to-government agreement, it is an honest and transparent deal. All else is nothing but propaganda to undermine national interest.”

Responding to Congress’ charge that the government had failed to create jobs, Modi said more than 45 lakh formal jobs were created between September 2017 and April 2018 and EPFO data indicated that 70 lakh jobs were created last year. He said growth in tourism, loans under Mudra, startups and construction is bound to have created employment.