Bhubaneswar: Odisha will be one of the growth engines of the ‘vikash yatra’ of the country in the next 25 years, Narendra Modi said at the NDA Parliamentary Party meeting on Friday.
“When I think about Lord Jagannath, I believe that he is the God of the poor,” he said while speaking about revolutionary results in Odisha, where the saffron party swept the Lok Sabha polls by winning 20 of 21 parliamentary constituencies and also won the mandate to form its maiden government in the state by clinching 78 of 147 Assembly seats. He added that India would achieve the dream of ‘Vikshit Bharat’ with the blessings of the Lord.
Addressing alliance partners and newly-elected lawmakers, Modi further said that the NDA was not a grouping of parties that have come together for power, but an organic alliance committed to the principle of ‘nation first’. “We are committed to the principle of sarva dharma sambhava (all religions are equal). This is most successful alliance in India’s history; our aim will be to reach unanimity in all our decisions,” he said.
He took a dig at the opposition INDIA bloc and said that when the results were declared he was concerned if the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) are ‘dead or alive’ referring to the allegations of EVM rigging. “When results were coming out on June 4, I was busy with work. Phone calls started coming in later. I asked someone, numbers are fine, tell me EVM zinda hai ki mar gaya (Is the EVM dead or alive). Before 4 June, these people (opposition) were constantly blaming EVMs and they were determined to make people lose faith in the democratic process of India.I thought they would take out the funeral procession of the EVM,” he said, adding that it was an attempt to weaken the Election Commission of India.
Targeting the Congress, the outgoing PM said that the grand old party had failed to touch the figure of 100 seats even after 10 years. “If we combine the 2014, 2019 and 2024 elections, Congress did not even get as many seats as BJP got in this election. I can clearly see the people of the INDI alliance were sinking slowly earlier, now they are going to sink at a fast pace.”
Modi further claimed that the country trusts only the NDA. “When there is such unwavering trust and confidence it is natural that the country’s expectations will also increase and I consider this good. I had said earlier that the work of the last 10 years is just a trailer. And this is my commitment,” he said.
He added that NDA members behaviour after June 4 showed that they know how to digest victory. “Our values are such that we do not develop frenzy in the lap of victory and neither do we have the values of mocking the defeated. We protect the victorious and we do not have the perversion of mocking the defeated. These are our values,” he said.
He also expressed his “heartfelt gratitude” to all the leaders of the constituent parties present in this assembly hall, all the newly-elected MPs and Rajya Sabha MPs.
Earlier, leaders of the NDA allies garlanded Modi as a proposal by senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh to make him the alliance leader was unanimously endorsed. The 73-year-old BJP leader is likely to be sworn in as the prime minister for the third term, matching the record of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, at 6 pm on June 9.