Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday accused the opposition Congress of trying to sow seeds of separatism in India by trying to instigate people of Tamil Nadu and other states, and by propounding a misleading notion that India was not one nation but merely a union of states.
Replying to the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address, Mr Modi said India has been one nation since time immemorial and in spite of different cultures, the country has remained one nation. He quoted Vishnu Purana to say since ancient India, the land on the north of oceans and south of snowy Himalayas has been called Bharat. He also quoted verses in Tamil by poet Subramania Bharati in support of this argument.
The Prime Minister said Congress has adopted the British strategy of divide and rule. “It had become leader of the tukde tukde gang.”
Referring to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s statement that India is not described as a nation in the Constitution but as a Union of states, the Prime Minister said “the House was insulted when it was said that the word nation was not mentioned in the Constitution.” He said that the notion of a nation is not a mere arrangement to rule; “nation for us is a living soul.”
Mr Modi said that the statements and actions of Congress party shows that it has resigned itself to staying out of power for the next 100 years. He said even after losing power in so many states, “neither has your ego gone, nor your ecosystem has allowed you to shed your arrogance.”
Accusing the Congress of “indulging in blind opposition”, he said, “criticism is a jewel of democracy, but blind opposition is an insult to democracy”.
The Prime Minister said India has taken giant strides towards becoming Atmanirbhar. "We are promoting domestic industry by giving a push to Make in India in every sector."
Startups are mushrooming and the number of unicorns is set to hit a century, the Prime Minister said, adding that these startups were creating large number of jobs. He said there were only 500 startups till 2014, but now there are 60,000 of them.
He said his government has made rules for defence procurement from domestic industry.
"Bulk of the purchases in the defence sector will now be made from Indian manufacturers. But in the past we have seen that no attempt was made to promote the domestic industry in the defence sector, and emphasis was laid on imports. We all know why."
He said, "Make in India means no commission, no corruption. That is why they are attacking it." This remark was made in reference to Rahul Gandhi’s comment that Make in India cannot succeed without promoting MSMEs.
The Prime Minister said his government has succeeded in keeping prices in check in spite of the economy being hit hard by COVID pandemic. He said while inflation in a developed country was touching 7 per cent, his government has succeeded in keeping it at 5.2 per cent.
He said the Congress governments before him had always blamed external factors for price rise.
“We could also have blamed Covid for rising prices. But we did not do that. We worked to keep it under check.”
He quoted first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru as having said that even events in Korea affected things in India.