Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi on Saturday delivered the keynote address at the BJP’s national convention on good governance by comparing India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with his successor Lalbahadur Shastri. He advised BJP’s chief ministers and ministers from different states to follow in the footsteps of Shastri in terms of good governance.
The convention was inaugurated by BJP president Nitin Gadkari at Uttan near Mumbai. However, the star attraction of the convention was Mr Modi’s keynote that lived upto its expectation by stoking a new controversy. Mr Modi said, “Mr Nehru was fond of children and therefore we celebrate his birthday as Children’s Day. Children called him ‘Chacha Nehru’. It brings images of a benevolent Nehru flooding our minds. But what difference has it made to the several children? Even today there are children who do not get two meals a day.”
Further comparing Nehru with Shastri, the Gujarat CM argued that the latter brought food and prosperity to the country. “Shastri gave slogan of Jai Jawan, Jai Kisaan. He not only gave the slogan, but worked on its implementation. He brought shwet kranti (milk revolution) and harit kranti (green revolution) to the country. He did not have a glamorous personality, but he delivered good governance, which we should aim to follow.”
Mr Modi further said that good governance is only possible if the government looks beyond short-term requirements. “The government should do things keeping in mind future generation and not the next elections. Only good governance is not enough, it has to be pro-people and proactive. Good governance is putting people at the centre of the development process,” he said adding, “People’s participation is the essence of good governance.”
While talking about innovative schemes implemented by his government in Gujarat, Mr Modi said that Jyotigram Yojana provides round-the-clock electricity to villages and Krushi Mahotsav has led to an “agricultural miracle” in Gujarat. Mr Modi also applauded the work of other BJP-ruled states including the Ladli Laxmi scheme of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh Public Distribution System reforms, computerisation of land records in Karnataka, the power sector reforms in Rajasthan and the Mumbai-Pune Expressway in Maharashtra.