Eyeing to buck the anti-incumbency of 18 long years of rule to win another stint in power, the ruling BJP launched the first of its five Jan Ashirwad Yatras in assembly polls bound Madhya Pradesh on Sunday.
The first Jan Ashirwad Yatra was flagged off by the party national president JP Nadda from Lord Ram’s tapobhoomi (holy land) Chitrakoot in Satna district.
Forming part of MP’s Baghelkhand/Vindhya region (BJP swept in 2018 polls), the Chitrakoot assembly seat has been won by the saffron party only once in 66 years. It was in 2008 that BJP had last won the seat, when its recently declared candidate Surendra Singh Gaharwar had won by just 700-odd votes.
Addressing a public meeting before flagging off the Yatra, the BJP national president hit out at the opposition’s INDIA alliance over Tamil Nadu sports and youth welfare minister Udayanidhi Stalin's alleged controversial statement about Sanatan Dharma.
“The DMK is among the biggest and strongest constituents of the opposition’s Ghamandiya alliance. DMK chief and Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin’s minister son Udayanidhi Stalin proclaimed abolishing the Sanatan Dharma/Hindu religion. He has equated abolition of Sanatan Dharma/Hindu Dharma with eradicating vector-borne Malaria and dengue.”
“I want to ask Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, what is his Mohabbat ki Dukan (shop of love) selling, is it selling the same anti-Sanatan Dharma/Hindu religion venom spewed by the TN minister? The opposition’s Ghamandiya alliance needs to tell us whether this political strategy of abolishing Sanatan Dharma was churned out at the recent Mumbai brainstorming. Will the Opposition Alliance (INDIA) go into the next elections with the political agenda of abolishing Sanatan Dharma?” Nadda questioned.
“I appeal to people present here for the start of the Jan Ashirwad Yatra to take a vow of uprooting the opposition’s Ghamandiya alliance in the coming polls over this anti-Sanatan Dharma ideology,” he added.
Two weeks after Union Home Minister Amit Shah had presented the detailed report card of the 18-plus years of the BJP regime in MP, Nadda narrated some of those statistics, to underscore how MP has been transformed from a BIMARU state to a developing state during the BJP regime.
Uma Bharti pained at not being invited to Jan Ashirwad Yatra launch
Bhopal: Pained by not being invited to the start of state BJP’s Jan Ashirwad Yatra in Hindu pilgrimage Chitrakoot on Sunday, former MP CM and one of the frontal leaders of Ram Temple Movement, Uma Bharti said, “Maybe they (BJP leaders) are nervous that if I’m there, then entire public attention will be on me.”
“If Jyotiraditya Scindia helped them form the government (in 2020), even I helped them form a bigger majority government (in 2003). He (Scindia) is loved by me as a nephew, but at least I was worthy of being invited to the Yatra launch, even though I wouldn’t have gone there. But I’ll still campaign for the BJP and solicit votes for the party in the coming polls,” she said.
“Be it road construction, per capita income, opening new medical colleges or industrial and agricultural growth, MP under the BJP and Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s regime, has made rapid strides in all spheres of development. The state is number one in the country in various spheres, including cleanliness and sanitation, smart city development, water conservation and many major schemes of the Modi government, including the PM Swamitva Yojana, PM Awas Yojana and PM Matru Vandana Yojana.
The achievement of being number one in PM Awas Yojana particularly assumes significance, as in the 15-month-long erstwhile Congress regime led by Kamal Nath, the housing scheme for the poor was brought to a halt in the state. But in the last three and half years Shivraj Singh Chouhan's government has worked exceedingly well to enable MP to top the country under the same scheme.”
The rally which was attended among others by union ministers Jyotiraditya Scindia and Narendra Singh Tomar (latter being the party MP Election Management Committee convener) was also addressed by CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan and state BJP chief VD Sharma.
The five Yatras will cover 10,500 km, while travelling 210 out of the 230 assembly segments of the poll-bound state. In the next three days, four more Jan Ashirwad Yatras will be flagged off by union ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari from other parts of the state. The five Yatras will conclude in Bhopal with the Karyakarta Mahakumbh on September 25 to be addressed by PM Narendra Modi.
Mocking at the launch of BJP’s Jan Ashirwad Yatra, Congress national general secretary in-charge for MP state, Randeep Singh Surjewala said it’s actually a Yatra of Jan Dhoka and Loot (cheating and looting people).