Nadda takes out roadshow in Patna, delivers pep talk to party workers

BJP president JP Nadda on Saturday asserted that it was his party which brought Gandhi’s dream of ''Gram Swaraj to fruition'' and charged the Congress with having shown a “superficial understanding” of India in its conception of cooperative farming.

Nadda made the remarks at a ''Gram Sansad'' where party delegates from across the country were given a pep talk and asked to remember “we are the champions of development, in need of no certificate from anybody”.

The “Gram Sansad” was followed by a joint national executive meeting of the BJP’s seven wings (morchas) which will conclude on Sunday with the address of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

“In the last eight years, since Narendra Modi assumed power (at the Centre), there has been a five-fold increase in funds allocated for rural development. And as our prime minister says, gone are the days when only 15 paise out of every rupee that was allocated used to reach the intended beneficiaries,'' said Nadda, referring to former PM Rajiv Gandhi’s famous statement.

The BJP president appeared to be stressing that his party’s government, which had faced flak over the contentious farm laws, was deeply concerned about the needs of the rural populace and was taking steps for their betterment.

Citing the Modi government’s drives like building toilets on war footing and the “Ujjwala yojana, Nadda said “gone are the days when women in Bihar used to wait till dusk before they could line up on the roadside to relieve themselves. In my home state of Himachal Pradesh, women no longer climb trees to collect twigs for cooking purposes, which often caused them to trip and fracture their limbs and ribs”. He also showered praise on the Modi administration for its mammoth inoculation drive against COVID-19 and stated with pride that “we used to receive vaccines from other countries in the past. Now we have become suppliers”.

The “Gram Sansad” was preceded by a huge roadshow, starting from a statue of B R Ambedkar near the Patna High Court and concluded at Gandhi Maidan where Nadda, accompanied by senior leaders like Union minister Giriraj Singh and local MP Ravi Shankar Prasad, made a brief public speech standing in front of a sculpture of Jayaprakash Narayan.

The entire city seemed bedecked with posters and banners welcoming Nadda even as some bystanders smirked at the absence of Amit Shah in many of these. Party workers, however, said that fresh posters and banners will be in place to welcome Shah, who is scheduled to arrive on Sunday afternoon.

The opposition RJD issued a statement criticising the BJP for “splurging money” on the two-day event in the state, where it has been sharing power with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) for 17 years.

JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan bristled when reporters asked him whether the BJP’s show of strength caused anxieties in his party’s rank and file.

When asked whether a meeting with Nadda and Shah was on the cards, in view of the fact that the chief minister is in home isolation following a bout of COVID-19, Lalan, who is also a Lok Sabha member, snapped, “I keep meeting them in Delhi. What is the point in meeting them here”.

Nadda, who fondly remembers having spent his childhood and early youth in Patna, is scheduled to stay the night here and visit the Patna Sahib gurudwara Sunday morning, before listening to prime minister’s “Mann Ki Baat” at an auditorium along with party colleagues.

Before joining Shah for the valedictory function, he is also scheduled to inaugurate and lay foundation stones for party offices in a number of Bihar districts, through remote control.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)