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A day before the last session of the 16th Lok Sabha, Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned up the political temperature, recalling the virtues of electing a stable government, prompting Congress leader Ahmed Patel to ask if he (Modi) will sit in the Opposition if the BJP fails to secure the majority mark of 272 seats in the general elections.
Addressing a gathering in Surat on Wednesday, Modi said the nation had suffered from the “disease” of instability under coalition governments for 30 years, before it elected a stable government with a full majority in 2014. Unstable governments were cobbled up as rag-tag formations. “Under a hung Parliament and coalition government, progress was hampered and the country even slipped backwards.”
“But a stable government can take strong decisions. It is accountable and responsible. A coalition government shirks the responsibility, under the alibi that a coalition government cannot take decisions. In 2014, you elected a stable government with full majority. After four-and-a-half years, anyone can ask me about my government’s achievements.”
He also recounted the virtue of demonetisation, saying it had wiped out black money from the real estate sector and made the poor and the middle class fulfil their dreams of buying their own houses. The previous governments had constructed only 25 lakh houses in decades, while the Modi government has constructed 1.30 crore houses for these people since 2014.
In a series of tweets, Ahmed Patel, a Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat, said: “If the Prime Minister thinks that coalition governments do not function properly, why doesn’t the BJP exit from the State governments of Maharashtra, Bihar and Goa?”
“By saying that he can’t function in a coalition government, has the PM confirmed that if the BJP gets less than 272 seats, it will sit in (the) Opposition?” he said.
“Looks like they have learnt a lesson after trying to steal people’s mandate in Goa, Bihar, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Karnataka. ,” Patel tweeted.
The PM flew to Surat and launched several development projects.
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