Poison of appeasement weakening with development: PM Modi in Azamgarh

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said the ''poison of appeasement'' was weakening with Uttar Pradesh touching new heights of development, as he slammed nepotism in politics in a constituency often linked with the Mulayam-Akhilesh Yadav family.

Addressing a rally in Azamgarh, he slammed the Yadavs for treating Azamgarh as their bastion and alleged that this very ''nepotism'' led some people to take a dig at him that he does not have a family.

''In the last election, the family, which considered Azamgarh its bastion, was defeated by a youth like Dinesh (Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua MP of Azamgarh),'' Modi said.

Late SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav won the Azamgarh parliamentary seat in 2014, and after him, his son Akhilesh Yadav won it in 2019.

The party, however, lost the seat to BJP's Dinesh Lal Yadav in the 2022 by-election, which was necessitated by Akhilesh's vacating the seat and deciding to contest the assembly poll from Karhal.

''Due to this 'parivaarvad,' (the opposition) people are so frustrated that they abuse Modi. They say that Modi doesn't have a family. They forget that the 140 crore population of the country is the family of Modi,'' the PM said, also responding to RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav, who in a sally on March 3 asked him why he did not have a family.

Lalu Yadav had made the remark while addressing an INDIA bloc rally in Patna and slammed Modi for accusing the opposition of indulging in dynastic politics.

''As UP is touching new heights of development the poison of appeasement is weakening,'' Modi said.

He said that Azamgarh, which was once considered backward, is a shining star today and is writing a new chapter of development for the country. ''Today, the star of Azamgarh is shining. There was a time when there would be an event in Delhi and other states would join in. Today, the event is being held in Azamgarh and thousands of people from different parts of the country are connecting with Azamgarh,'' Modi said. Before his speech, Modi inaugurated or laid the foundations of projects worth Rs 42,000 crore across the country, of which projects worth Rs 34,700 crore are in UP, with a major chunk of them involving the construction of airports and airport buildings. The PM said one must not link these projects with elections and added that he sped up the development works to achieve the dream of a developed India by 2047. ''I am running with speed and moving the country with speed to fulfil the promise of developed India by 2047,'' he said. He accused the previous opposition governments of not coming good on their promises and pulling the wool over the public's eyes by, at times, announcing schemes with no intention to start on them.

''Sometimes they had so much courage that they would announce new railways schemes while sitting in the Parliament believing no one would ask later. ''I have reviewed the announcements that were made 30-35 years ago. Sometimes they would lay a foundation stone before an election and then disappear,'' Modi said. ''Today the country is witnessing that Modi is a different kind of person,'' he added.

The PM said that the planning for urbanisation which is going on in the country should have been done 30 years ago, but it wasn't, and that he is working on making urbanisation an opportunity. ''Such a fast pace of development happens only when the government works with the right intentions and honesty. Development work on such a large scale was not possible in the previous 'parivaarvadi' governments steeped in corruption,'' he said. ''In the previous governments, Azamgarh and Purvanchal region did not just face backwardness, but also no stone was left unturned to tarnish the image of this place.

''The entire country saw how patronage was given to terrorists by the previous governments. To change this situation, the double-engine government is also working to provide new opportunities to the youth here and working in this regard continuously,'' he said. Modi inaugurated Azamgarh, Shravasti, Chitrakoot, and Aligarh airports and a new terminal of Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport, Lucknow. The PM also inaugurated Maharaja Suhel Dev State University, Azamgarh, constructed at a cost of 108 cr. He inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of five major National Highway projects worth Rs 11,500 cr. More than 5,342 km of roads built in 59 UP districts under the PM Gram Sadak Yojna worth Rs 3,700 cr were also inaugurated by him. The PM inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of 12 railway projects across UP worth Rs 8,200 cr. He also inaugurated three sewage projects built under Namami Ganga Yojna worth Rs 1,114 cr in Prayagraj, Etawah, and Jaunpur districts of the state. The prime minister is also slated to inaugurate the Light House Project (LHP) in Lucknow under which more than 1,040 affordable flats have been built with modern infrastructure.