NaMo's mantra

Narendra Modi sought to wrench the political momentum back in his favour by unveiling his economic vision for India, seeking to answer criticism by the Congress that he didn’t have a plan to sort out the country’s ills.The key elements of the BJP prime ministerial candidate’s programme are urbanisation, infrastructure, education and healthcare, apart from cracking down on scourges such as inflation and black money.
Modi said he wanted to reach out to every level of society to ensure that benefits of economic change didn’t just go to the advantaged, which didn’t sound all that distant from Congress’ inclusiveness agenda. “For the country to progress, it is important to focus on good governance,” Modi told the BJP’s last national council meeting ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
“This is not just for the rich, it’s for the poor,” he said.
His wish list includes Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management and All India Institutes of Medical Science in every state, 100 new smart cities and bullet trains to all four corners of the country.
He said inflation, one of BJP’s main election planks besides corruption and “mis-governance” by the UPA government, was the country’s biggest predicament and said steps needed to be taken to contain it. The answer lay in farm data that was much more current than it is now and a fund that could be used to protect the vulnerable. “We need to make a mechanism to measure data in real time so that we can decide what is to be imported and exported,” he said. Modi also floated the idea of a price stabilisation fund to ensure that nobody went hungry.
“If the governments of Vajpayeeji and Morarji Desai could stop price rise, why can’t we? The BJP government in 2014 will do it, I assure you,” he said.
He spoke of the need to focus on Brand India, referring to five Ts — tradition, talent, tourism, technology and trade. He also pledged a mix of social welfare schemes that would bring India on a par with developed economies, urging people to vote for him. “This is not an election to change the government, but an election of hope and change,” he said. Other priorities in his programme include development of infrastructure such as roads, ports and airports, reviving power plants that are shut, creating jobs, skill development, setting up agro infrastructure gas grids, deploying optical fibre networks, pushing the river interlinking project and establishing special courts to punish black marketing.
Industrialists were generally welcoming of the Modi Vision.
In the 75-minute speech, Modi said the country has to treat urbanisation as an “opportunity”, not as a “challenge”, something India hasn’t done. A BJP government under him will build 100 new cities to be developed as smart cities, twin cities and satellite cities, he said.

The surprisingly strong showing of the Aam Aadmi Party in the Delhi assembly election and its subsequent formation of the state government led to a sudden change in the direction of political discourse, which had been dominated by Modi until then. Rahul Gandhi’s impassioned election speech at the AICC session on Friday appears to have given fresh vigour to his party’s flagging campaign. The UPA had suffered heavy losses in state elections, its popularity having been eroded by corruption scandals, surging inflation and an inability to prevent economic growth from plunging to its lowest in a decade with no sign of revival.
Modi said his development agenda would have a real impact on people, contrasting it with what he derided as the ineffectual programmes of the Congress-led UPA. The country didn’t need committees, but commitment, not Acts, but action and not just bills but political will, he said, repeating his slogan: “They are trying to save the government and we are trying to save the country.”
He called for drastic improvements to the state-run, monopoly railway system that’s been known over the years for its creaking infrastructure, a bloated workforce, poor service and a spotty safety record. “If the railways is modernised, we can give impetus to progress. By the time the country celebrates the diamond jubilee of independence (2022), we should have bullet trains going in four directions. The world will start seeing us with a new vision,” he said.

TO BATTLE BLACK MONEY AND WESTERN INFLUENCE
Modi also touched on senior BJP leader LK Advani’s pet theme of getting black money stashed overseas back to the country, saying that a task force will be set up to ensure that this is achieved. Modi also spoke of the need to uphold what he regarded as India’s traditions, likening it to a rainbow with seven shades—family values, agriculture and rural India, empowerment of women, environment, youth, democracy and knowledge.
He also declared himself concerned about what he described as “western influences”, adding that there would be zero tolerance for drugs and narcotics.
Modi also said regional aspirations could become an opportunity to progress rather than a challenge. “We are a federal nation and it cannot be just adhered to as something constitutional. We need to respect it in letter and spirit. As a chief minister (of Gujarat), I completely understand the importance of the federal strength of the nation. All the chief ministers and the prime minister should move together to make the nation stronger,” he said.