Cong can’t be forgiven for PM security breach: Rajnath Singh

PTI, Jan 6, 2022, 5:32 PM IST

Holding the Punjab government responsible for the Prime Minister’s security breach on way to Ferozepur, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said the Congress party cannot be forgiven for the serious lapse. ”The Congress party is in power in Punjab. Could we have imagined a security breach in Prime Minister’s convoy like the one that happened there yesterday?” ”A Prime Minister represents the country. His office is an institution that everyone should respect. If we cannot ensure the safety of institutions like that of the prime minister it would be difficult to prevent the disintegration of the country’s democratic institutions,” Singh said addressing the BJP’s concluding Vijay Sankalp rally in Uttarkashi.

”I have also been a chief minister. We never accepted the ugly politics of this kind,” he said and asked people if the Congress party can be forgiven for what happened with the Prime Minister’s security in Punjab.

He also attacked Congress campaign head for Uttarakhand Harish Rawat for saying that Narendra Modi keeps visiting the state for marketing. Without naming him and merely referring to him as a former chief minister who wanted to be the chief minister again, Singh also accused Rawat of trying to grab credit for Kedarnath reconstruction for saying that Modi was meditating in a cave built during his chief ministership.

”If that is true, why couldn’t you ever pluck the courage to meditate in that cave?” Singh asked.

”I have never levelled unfounded allegations against any of our prime ministers, be it Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Manmohan Singh or Deve Gowda because the prime minister’s office is a democratic institution which should be respected by all,” the Defence Minister said.

On Congress allegation that BJP had changed two chief ministers in Uttarakhand, Singh said all the party’s chief ministers had performed well. ”If we had gone to polls projecting someone as the chief ministerial candidate we would not have changed him. The party fought the polls and made whoever it thought was right for the job of CM. It is the party’s internal matter. ”A national party has many things to take care of. Whose services are needed for the organisation and whose for the Parliament… We may change our chief minister ten times if we so wish. Why should it bother you?” he said.

He said the difference between the BJP and other parties is that there is no gap between what the BJP says and what it does. Unlike other parties BJP has never compromised with its ideology, he said.

Citing the examples of revoking Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and the Ram temple being built in Ayodhya in support of his argument, Singh sought another term for the BJP to make Uttarakhand a model state under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as envisioned by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He said India’s prestige under Modi’s leadership has grown manifold internationally.

”Today when India speaks on international forums, the whole world listens to it attentively. Yoga is Uttarakhand’s gift to the world. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts helped it earn the recognition of world bodies like the United Nations and more than 100 countries in the world today are practicing it,” he said.

Singh called Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami a ”Dhakad batsman” who has not stopped batting despite a hand injury suffered in a friendly cricket match here recently.

He expressed surprise that Dhami had accomplished so much during a short span of just a few months because of his enormous capacity for hard work.

Dhami has not just announced hundreds of welfare measures but also initiated work on most of them.

He said he was not begging for votes as he was confident that if the people of Uttarakhand weigh and examine the work done over the past five years of BJP rule in the state and seven and a half years of Narendra Modi government at the Centre, they will definitely vote for the BJP.