Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday said that a majority mandate given to his party in the 2014 general elections helped him achieve governance success over the past five years.
Modi’s constant reference to a majority mandate in his last speech in the 16th Lok Sabha comes against the backdrop of a growing grand alliance by opposition parties ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections due in two months.
“The world recognizes full majority governments. Coalition and absence of a majority government in the previous 30 years had impacted our standing...When the leader of a majority government meets global counterparts, they know that the leader has a mandate and strength,” he said in Hindi. “People credit Modi, Sushma (Swaraj) for the global and (diplomatic) success. But the key behind this is a full majority government”.
Modi’s Lok Sabha address is in a way his poll campaign seeking a similar majority mandate from the people in 2019. In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had got 282 seats in a 543-member Lok Sabha, but a stronger combined opposition is hoping to bring down this number this time.
“Nearly in three decades, we formed a majority government.... The first full majority non-Congress government came in 2014,” Modi said.
The Prime Minister said that, over the last five years, he has “realised that India now occupies a place in the global high table, and its complete credit goes not to Modi or Sushmaji but to the majority mandate given in 2014 by the people of India”.
He said of the 17 sessions during the 16th Lok Sabha, in eight sessions the productivity is more than 100% and on an average “85% outcome, we are concluding today” .
From the growth of India’s soft power to the humanitarian work of his government, from a solar alliance to passage of important legislations, Modi recounted his achievements, amid occasional attacks on the Congress and its leadership.
Modi spoke about key legislations that the government passed, including the ones on the goods and services tax, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, Aadhaar, enemy property, and on economic offenders. He said the 16th Lok Sabha saw 219 Bills being introduced, of which 203 were passed.
“Today, India’s self-confidence is at an all-time high. Today all global agencies are talking about India and its glorious future...,” Modi claimed.
The Prime Minister also took a jibe at Congress president Rahul Gandhi over the later’s constant attack on him over the pricing of the Rafale fighter jets.
Gandhi had earlier in the day at the Congress parliamentary party’s general body meeting, described the Rafale deal as “systematic robbery” from the Indian defence forces and alleged that not just the fighter jet contract, but every deal under the Modi government had been managed in the same way. “There is not a single step for the prime minister to stand on. You can see it in his face. You can see the expression...that bluster has gone and that is not Rahul Gandhi, that is the Congress, Congress workers and all of you,” news agency PTI quoted him as saying.
