Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday stressed that peace, harmony and unity of society were the prerequisites for the country’s ‘vikas’ (development) and the BJP MPs should take the lead in ensuring them.
Mr. Modi was addressing the MPs at a parliamentary party meeting for the first time in the second part of the Budget session and after the riots in north-east Delhi last week that claimed over 40 lives.
Sources present at the meeting said Mr. Modi also took potshots at the Opposition, which had been highly critical of the government’s handling of the riots and the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
Mr. Modi noted that while “political interests were supreme” for “some parties”, for the BJP, national interest was above everything, a senior party MP said.
An officially released transcript of Prime Minister Modi’s speech said: “I feel sad when I see some parties hesitating to chant Bharat Mata ki Jai [Hail Mother India]. They look at it [Bharat Mata Ki Jai] with suspicion, as though there was a strange odour emanating from it. Given all this BJP must keep to its principles of keeping national interest upper most.”
The mention of “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” was a riposte to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s speech on February 22 at a book launch that the chant connoted a “militant idea of India”, the sources said.
The Opposition has sought to corner the Modi government on the Delhi violence, with both Houses of Parliament seeing much disruption on Monday.
