news details |
|
|
| Opposition created north-south divide for political gains: Rajnath Singh | | | 
Visakhapatnam, Feb 28:
The BJP is not a north-centric party and the north-south binary has been created by the opposition parties for "narrow" political gains, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Tuesday, asserting that such efforts to discredit the party also put a question mark on national integrity.
In an address at an event, Mr Singh said the BJP was the ruling party across various states in the country including in the southern state of Karnataka and the allegation that it is only a party of north India is "factually wrong".
"An allegation is often levelled against us that BJP is only a party of north India. You all must have heard this. They also make this allegation against us that we are only a party of the Hindi belt. We have formed a government with absolute majority twice in Assam. Assam is not a Hindi belt state," he said.
The senior BJP leader said the party has been registering its effective presence in states like Rajasthan and Gujarat for about three-four decades and that it received maximum seats in western India in the last Lok Sabha elections.
"In Gujarat, we have a government for almost 30 years. If we talk about the states of southern India, we have had our government in Karnataka for a long time. Presently we are the second largest party in West Bengal, Odisha and Karnataka. Our vote share is continuously increasing in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala," Singh said.
"Therefore, the allegation that BJP is only a party of north Indians is factually completely wrong. For narrow political gains and immediate electoral gains, these people, in the name of discrediting BJP, also put a question mark on the national integrity of India," he said.
"By showing prosperity figures of south India, our opposition colleagues many times try to show animosity between north Indians and south Indians," Mr Singh said.
He noted that there are "some different structural issues in north India and south India.", adding "our effort should be that we can do something good, something big by combining both." "Our effort should be to connect both more, and not to break both in the name of language and prosperity," he said.
The defence minister said today India's credibility has increased on international platforms and the country is no longer a weak nation.
"It has now become a powerful country in the world. Now if anyone dares to target India in a wrong way, India will not shy away from giving a befitting reply. Now heads of state of many countries also believe that the 21st century is going to belong to India," he said.
"Our prime minister has so much goodwill abroad that eight former Indian sailors who were given death sentences in Qatar got pardoned from there and one of them is from Visakhapatnam," he said.
Mr Singh also rejected allegations that the BJP is a communal party. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
