Modi Govt heralded new scales of development: Amit Shah

Bengaluru, Apr 20: Seeking to the woo the trading community in country's IT capital, BJP national president Amit Shah has asserted that the Narendra Modi-led dispensation has changed the scale of development works and promised the citizens here that if voted to power his party will turn Karnataka as a 'corruption free' model state.

“Before 2014, the situation was grim in the country. We changed the scale of work. Our government worked to ensure that there is no household without a toilet, no person without a bank account or a village without electricity. Before 2014, a number of corruption cases came coming out and the total figure for corruption was Rs 12 lakh crore," Mr Shah said addressing a convention of traders and industry leaders here on Thursday evening.

Mr Shah said it is due to the tireless works of the BJP government in the centre that in the last four years 29 lakh people had got bank accounts, 7.5 lakh toilets had been built and 9 lakh families and poor women had got gas cylinders.

Often under attack for not providing jobs since 2014 as was promised by Prime Minister Mr Modi, the BJP president said no government would be able to provide employment to all the youth in the country.

“But our leader and Prime Minister found a new avenue of self employment, and without any guarantee or guarantor it gave youth loans ranging between Rs 10,000 and Rs 10 lakh and people have benefited," he said.
He charged the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah with "destroying" Bengaluru by neglecting its infrastructure and went on to state that the Chief Minister on the contrary always uses a costly wrist watch.

"This gathering has affluent people. Any one of have such costly watches?," he asked and then said the Chief Minister has it.

"We have raised the question on who gave the watch to the Chief Minister and are yet to get an answer," said Mr Shah.

Organised by BJP's separate wings, during his two-day stay, Mr Shah addressed a number of such meets including traders, community leaders from OBCs and sought to pitch for the return of BJP-ld government.

He also questioned Congress contribution over the last 60 years and took a potshot at Mr Rahul Gandhi for his "ignorance" on the difference between loan waivers and non-performing assets.

He also said the Congress chief had even failed to pronounce the name of Sir M Visvesvaraya, the celebrated engineer, scholar, statesman, and the 19th Diwan of Mysore.

"Rahul Gandhi does not understand the difference between loan waive and NPAs. He is misleading the country with his ignorance. Let him first learn to pronounce Visvesvaraya's name," Mr Shah said.

On a pressing issue of GST implementation and hardship resulted due to it, the BJP chief the decision to implement GST was taken after all the state Chief Ministers but maintained the GST Council has been effectively resolving the issues related to the uniform taxation norms.