Modi: Alliances based on negativity can't win

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, July 18

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday predicted a third straight win for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, and declared that people were watching the “glue of corruption and compulsions” that had cemented the opposition parties that once never saw eye to eye.

Addressing 39 NDA partners here, the PM countered opposition’s INDIA with the trinity of NDA which, he said, symbolised, “New India; Developed nation; Aspirations of people and regions.”

New NDA allies — Sena’s Eknath Shinde, NCP’s Ajit Pawar and Praful Patel, HAM’s Jitan Ram Manjhi, LJP (Ram Vilas)’s Chirag Paswan and RLSP’s Upendra Kushwaha — in attendance, the PM attacked the Congress for forging “negative alliances in the 1990s to bring instability to India”. “The NDA was not formed to oppose or dislodge any party. It was formed to bring stability because only a strong and stable government can take transformative decisions, as evidenced in the terms of Atal Behari Vajpayee and the last nine years of NDA rule,” he said.

The gathering, which deliberated on poll strategy for over six hours, also passed a resolution affirming faith in the PM’s leadership and resolving to collectively fight the 2024 polls with the ideology of “nation first and priority to the marginalised”. Earlier, noting that alliances formed on negativity “can never succeed”, the PM, in a veiled jibe at the Congress, said, “The NDA never sought foreign help to oppose governments at home. Even in opposition, it played a constructive role. The NDA conferred Bharat Ratna on late Pranab Mukherjee, who was in the Congress all his life, and Padma awards on Mulayam Singh Yadav, Tarun Gogoi and Ghulam Nabi Azad.”

The PM, declaring that the NDA, which completed 25 years recently, would bag more than 50 per cent of the vote share in 2024, said even the world powers knew who had the people’s mandate.

“In 2014, the country gave 38 per cent votes to the NDA, which rose to 45 per cent in 2019. In 2024, we will win over 50 per cent votes,” the PM said, dismissing the opposition’s assembly as an alliance that would bring “doom to the nation”. To stress his point, the PM recalled the Congress-led UPA era from 2004 to 2014 as a period of “high command above the PM, policy paralysis and mega corruption”.

All-party meet today

New Delhi: The government has convened an all-party meeting on Wednesday to deliberate on a host of issues related to the monsoon session of Parliament slated to begin on July 20

Real disciples of Badal, Thackeray with us: PM

• The PM, in a swipe at SAD and Uddhav Thackeray, said the real disciples of Parkash Singh Badal and Balasaheb Thackeray were with the NDA. Former Akali Dal veteran Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa was present at the meeting.

Will make modi pm 3rd time: NDA resolution

• The meeting of NDA allies passed a resolution pledging to contest the 2024 LS polls together and making Narendra Modi PM the third time
• It said opposition was ‘confused, disoriented and faced a crisis of identity and relevance’
• The resolution, moved by CM Eknath Shinde and seconded by AIADMK’s K Palanisamy and AGP’s Atul Bora, said the NDA would unitedly fight the polls under Modi’s leadership
• n Amid LAC tensions, the allies said in last nine years, India had strengthened border infra