Prime minister Narendra Modi on Monday gave a peek into the primary agenda of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) if it wins a successive third mandate in the upcoming national election—to make India the world’s third-largest economy while accelerating its growth as a developed nation, or ‘Viksit Bharat’.
Replying to a discussion on the motion of thanks on the President’s address in the Lok Sabha, the prime minister said the work done by the government in its current term gave him confidence that in the third term of the NDA, India will become the world’s third-largest economy, up from its fifth position now.
“This is Modi’s guarantee,” he told legislators, citing the speed of work in the country that gave him confidence this target would be reached within the next five-year term if the NDA wins the national election.
Hitting out at the previous Congress-led UPA government, Modi said that in the interim budget for 2014, the then finance minister had said India had become the world’s eleventh-largest economy and over the next three decades would become the third-largest economy.
“This meant that India would become third-largest economy only by 2044. We are confident of achieving this feat in the government’s third term itself,” Modi said.
The prime minister said that the pace of work in the country had reached unprecedented levels.
“Our third term will be full of big decisions…I had said from the Red Fort and also reiterated at the time of Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha that I want to see the country prosperous and at the pinnacle of success for the next thousand years. The third term will be the time to lay a strong foundation for the next 1,000 years,” Modi said.
Confident of winning and returning to power, the prime minister estimated that the NDA would win in more than 400 electoral seats, with the BJP winning in at least 370 of those.
The prime minister said the NDA government’s first term was spent on plugging loopholes of the earlier Congress-led government, while the second term focused on the development agenda. “In our third term, the goal of becoming ‘Viksit Bharat’ will get new speed,” he said.
Referring to the President’s address to a joint session of Parliament on 31 January, the prime minister reiterated that the priorities of the government would rest on four key pillars—youth power, women power, farmers, and the poor.
In this regard, he said women are making fruitful contributions in all sectors of the economy, and even in rural India 10 million women in self-help groups had become ‘lakhpati didi’s’. This number would grow to 30 million in the third term, Modi said.
The prime minister also highlighted how the government helped the farmers by purchasing food grains worth ₹18 trillion and pulses and oilseeds worth ₹1.25 trillion in the past 10 years of the BJP-led government.
Under the PM Kisan Samman scheme, the government has provided ₹2.8 trillion to farmers, and under the Fasal Bima Yojana scheme ₹1.5 trillion, he said.
The prime minister also said the budget for infrastructure had risen to ₹44 trillion over the past 10 years, from ₹10-12 trillion in the 10 years prior to 2014, when the first Narendra Modi administration took charge at the Centre.
“We want India to become a manufacturing, innovation and R&D hub,” Modi said.
The prime minister called on the Opposition as well to participate in the development of the nation, and help it become a developed nation by 2047.
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