Chennai: Launching a broadside against the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has claimed that Congress DNA still remained the same and that party has "become more cunning in its tactics," even going to the extent of questioning the court verdict (in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale deal case). Its "undemocratic behaviour" was increasing by the day and it has ended up "humiliating" every important institutions in the country.
"If you thought they (Congress) had a problem with EVMs and Election Commission - no, wait. They have humiliated the army, CAG and every institution important to our democracy. Take the case of courts, recently they questioned the Supreme Court verdict," Mr. Modi said on Wednesday during his second interaction with the BJP karyakarthas in Tamil Nadu. The Prime Minister interacted with party workers from Puducherry, Vellore, Kancheepuram, Villupuram and South Chennai through a video-conference from Delhi.
During the interaction a BJP member raised the question on the Congress trying to discredit national institutions for their political benefit and sought to know how to counter such narratives.
Responding, Mr. Modi said, "the perfect answer to the undemocratic behaviour of the Congress is to strengthen democracy. The people of our country are the greatest force protecting our democracy. The last time the Congress tried to threaten democracy, the people ensured it was stopped. BJP karyakartas should reach out to the people and tell them the Congress' DNA is still the same. Just because the emergency saw a big fight from the people, now they have become more cunning in their tactics. But yet again India will not excuse the Congress for playing with democracy."
In the past, merely because the court was fair, the Congress tried to even impeach the Chief Justice of India. "Its behaviour was akin to a student who comes home after exams, and says the paper went well. The parents also remain happy as the child. But if the results don't come as expected, the parents and the child blame the examiners, teachers and the school. This is the same thing happening in the case of our opposition too. This has to be explained to the people," he urged.
On a question pertaining to reforms in education sector since 2014, Mr. Modi said, "We are not only focusing on outlays, but on outcomes. We came up with the National Institutional Ranking Framework that ranks institutions based on objective and verifiable criteria for engineering, pharmacies, architecture, humanities, law and others, to ensure that we help institutions improve their quality and make them competitive."
Similar reforms are underway in the health sector too, with numerous AIIMS coming up in different States in the near future.
