‘Janjivan Bureau / Jalandhar : Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday that Punjab needed a stable government to protect national security. Modi, who was addressing a rally in Jalandhar—his first this election season—amid tight security arrangements, said Punjab needed a government that could protect it.
“Congress leaders are fighting among themselves. What security will they give you,” he asked.
The Congress, he said, did not give its state governments any autonomy.
“Congress governments are controlled through remote control by one family. Is that the spirit of federalism? It’s unconstitutional,” he said in his speech.
He invoked the 1984 riots and said the Congress was carrying out its vendetta against Punjab.
Punjab, he said, needed a double engine of development—Captain Amarinder Singh’s state government and his own central government. Only National Democratic Alliance can provide that, he said.
“Nava Punjab BJP de naal. Nava Punjab Nava team da naal,” he said in Punjabi.
The state needed a government that could rise above petty considerations of regionalism, and think about the nation as a whole.
“I owe much to Punjab. I’m indebted to Punjab. I want to serve you,” he said.
While most of his speech was reserved for critiquing the Congress, he took a swipe at former allies, the Shiromani Akali Dal. He said Punjab should have got a deputy chief minister from the Bharatiya Janata Party in Parkash Singh Badal’s government.
Badal however made his son Sukhbir Badal the state’s deputy chief minister, robbing the BJP of the chance.
“Still, we thought only of the state and its people,” he said in his speech.
ND’s chief ministerial candidate Amarinder Singh also spoke briefly, praising Narendra Modi’s leadership and calling him a strong Prime Minister.
“At a time when Punjab’s surrounded by Pakistan, China and the Taliban, I’m glad Modiji is our prime minister,” Capt Amarinder Singh said in his speech.
He said his former party, the Congress, and its leaders kept saying how he loved the BJP.
“Today I say I do. I love Narendra Modi and I love Amit Shah.”
