Union Minister for Home and Cooperatives, Amit Shah, said on Saturday that if Prime Minister Narendra Modi was voted to power in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the country would become the third largest economy in the world by 2027.
Shah also said that the installation of Lord Ram’s idol in Ayodhya on January 22, coinciding with the beginning of Amrit Kaal, was a “good sign”. He was speaking at the Shri Purani Swami Smruti Mahotsav organised by Swaminarayan Gurukul Vishwavidya Pratishthanam (SGVP) in Ahmedabad.
“I am saying this with conviction. In 2014, our economy ranked 11th in the world and today it is fifth. I have come to instill this faith in you that you make Modiji the Prime Minister in 2024 and in 2027, India will become the third biggest economy in the world,” Shah said.
On the consecration of Lord Ram’s idol on January 22 in Ayodhya, Shah said that for several years, the country was unable to reconstruct the “holy place where Lord Ram was born and was destroyed 550 years ago”.
“(Court) cases were made complicated and delayed. Then a government was formed under the leadership of Narendrabhai, and with the blessings and inspirations of saints, all the paths became smooth, and on January 22, Ram Lalla will sit in his house again,” he added.
“And it cannot be a coincidence that the restoration of Ram Lalla in his home and the beginning of India’s Amrit Kaal are happening together. It is not a coincidence, it is nature’s sign that India is going to be on top (on the world stage) in the 25 years of its Amrit Kaal,” he said.
Praising Modi for the New Education Policy based on the Indian value system, Shah said, “Students who will emerge from the new education policy will not become babus but Bharatiyas and fulfil the dream of building a great India.”
Crediting the Swaminarayan gurukuls for resisting “religious conversion”, he said, “I would like to admit from this forum that if the gurukuls, under the various Swaminarayan sects, were not working in Gujarat, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan in Gujarat would have remained incomplete.”
“I would not hesitate to say that in the far-flung tribal areas, they set up so many gurukuls quietly in silent service to stop religious conversion and joined our adivasi children to the Sanatan Dharma and also instilled in them our literary culture… the Swaminarayan Sampraday gave them the courage to achieve greater heights,” he added.
Shah said that after Independence, in the minds of those who “knew Bharat and loved Bharat and those who had faith in the word Bharat, there was a regret that the country had become independent but the direction it had taken was not towards Bharat but something else”.
“…all of us BJP karyakarts were making efforts to change this direction since 1950… and now when we see the chief minister of Gujarat become the prime minister of the country, the entire world is singing praises of Bharat,” he added.
He also credited Modi for not only the Chandrayaan-3 mission but also the naming of the spot where the Tricolour was unfurled on the Moon as “Shiv Shakti”.
Further crediting Modi for covering 140 crore people under the vaccination drive against Covid-19, Shah said, “The pundits of the world, and I know this because disaster management is my department, were worried about what would happen to India… such a huge population. Today, I have no hesitation in saying that people would tell me ‘bhaiya, kya karoge… there will be truckloads of dead bodies’… But this country gave an example of self-control in janta curfew under the leadership of Modiji…”
Stating that the very country that felt a sense of defeat (hatasha) and dejection (nirasha) during 2004-2014, was “moving ahead with resolve to become a world leader because the leadership of Narendrabhai has awakened the sva (self) and the atma (soul) of the country”.
Shah said that in the Northeast, “9,000 of our children, who, on the directions of foreigners, were wielding weapons, we made them surrender… Today, they are contesting elections and sitting in the Assembly and district panchayats and are charting the future of the Northeast”.
He further said that while India needed “sweet relations” with neighbours, “nobody should have the liberty to mess with our borders”.
Meanwhile, speaking in Gandhinagar, where he virtually laid the foundation stone of National Cooperative Dairy Federation of India’s upcoming headquarter at Anand, Shah said that “symmetric milk production (across the country) is possible only if it (dairy sector) is (part of the) cooperative sector”. He maintained that without “cooperation between cooperatives”, the cooperative sector cannot progress.
