In Uttarakhand poll rally, PM Modi slams ‘Shahi Parivar’ over border infrastructure, 'Shakti'

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressing a poll rally in the temple town of Rishikesh, hit out at previous Congress regimes for not upgrading infrastructure on the country’s borders and not even equipping forces with basics including bullet-proof jackets.

“Unlike Congress regimes, the country’s borders are fortified today, our soldiers have bullet-proof jackets and modern infrastructure and long tunnels are being built along the frontiers, all across the country,” PM Modi said while adding that today, modern arsenal and warfare equipment are being made in the country itself.

He further said that India’s enemies are now hunted down in their homes, either inside or outside the country and this has broken the back of anti-India terror networks.

Taking a jibe at the ‘culture of subservience’ to party high command, he said that for Congress, “Shahi Parivar is their everything but for him, the whole country was his family.”

Sounding the poll bugle in Uttarakhand, he also hit out at Congress for its resistance to ‘Shakti’, a divine form of power in Hinduism, and also for insulting Ram Lalla by boycotting the consecration ceremony in Ayodhya.

PM Modi said that Congress has taken a pledge to destroy ‘Shakti’ and ‘this will add fuel to fire in conspiracies being hatched to destroy the faith of Uttarakhand’.

Raking up the Congress refusal to attend the Pran Pratishtha ceremony of Ram Lalla, PM Modi dubbed it as ‘anti-vikas and anti-virasat’.

“Congress party first questioned the existence of Lord Ram, then opposed its construction and when it was invited by the Ram Mandir Trust to allow it to undo its mistake, the party decided to boycott it,” he told the huge gathering.

Reiterating his government’s resolve for the ‘Viksit Bharat 2047’ mission, he said that Viksit Uttarakhand is an essential pre-requisite in realising that dream.