Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday blamed the previous Congress governments for meting out “step-motherly” treatment to villages in the country after Independence and breaking their trust. Addressing a public event in Rewa on the occasion of the National Panchayati Raj Day, Modi said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government has changed the situation and pumped in huge grants to panchayats.
“The party which ruled the most after Independence broke the trust of villages…meted out step-motherly treatment to them,” Modi said.
“People, schools, roads, electricity, storage facilities, the economy of villages…all these were kept at the bottom of the government’s priorities during the Congress regime,” he said after virtually inaugurating a number of development projects.
“The previous governments used to avoid spending money on villages because a village was not a vote bank in itself. That is why they were ignored,” he said.
“Many political parties were running their ‘shops’ by dividing village folks. The BJP has ended this injustice meted out to villages and opened our treasure chest for their development,” he added.
He also took a veiled jibe at MP Congress chief Kamal Nath by speaking about the lack of development in Chhindwara, adding that the blame lays with the thinking of some political parties.
Nath was the Lok Sabha MP from Chhindwara for the dominant part since 1980, while his son won the seat in the 2019 general elections, which also ensured the BJP didn’t have a clean sweep in the state’s 29 seats.
“The ruling parties broke the trust of the rural poor by ignoring the basic needs of these areas after Independence,” Modi said.
With inputs from News18