PANAJI
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has introduced a new dimension to a democratic nation's working culture, Bharatiya Janata Party's national president JP Nadda said on Wednesday.
Nadda who was speaking at a function organised in the state capital to release BJP's report card of the last 10 years that the party has been in power, also said that India had now taken centre stage in world affairs, adding that when the Prime Minister speaks on international issues today, the world takes notice.
"There is a change in the working culture in a democracy. You have to understand that this change in working culture has happened on account of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I am not saying this just because I am giving a speech," Nadda said at the event, where top BJP leaders including Union Minister of State for Tourism Shripad Naik, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, state BJP president Sadanand Tanavade were also present.
Nadda is on a two-day visit to Goa to review the poll preparedness of the ruling party.
Nadda said that before the emergence of Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of the country, political parties indulged in run-of-the-mill tactics to woo voters and once they came into positions of power, all they did was accrue wealth for their own.
"The culture was to just deliver speeches to lure people, talking about nice things, picking on issues in society, which can trigger a sort of a competition in sections, giving an emotional edge to issues," Nadda said.
"They played vote bank politics, by becoming a champion of one section of society and when they got the votes, they would look after themselves, look after their family, fill up their homes with riches earned from corruption and then await the next elections. This was the political culture and I am speaking with full responsibility," he added.
Barring central governments led by Modi and former Prime Minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, all other governments, Nadda said, believed in eating 'meva' (ill-gotten wealth), while the era of seva (service) was ushered in by the leadership of Modi and Vajpayee.
"The previous government ate meva (ill-gotten wealth), we have to understand that seva (service) was carried out by governments headed by Atal ji and Modi," the BJP national president said.
Nadda further said that India was branded as a corrupt, backward nation before Modi became Prime Minister and added that the world had since changed the way it looked at India.
"We were being counted as corrupt. We were a backward country. We have progressed from that to where we are now. On international issues, what Modi speaks, the world listens. This is the situation which we have today," the BJP national president said.
