PANAJI
Goa weighed heavy on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mind on Thursday even as he once again used the shoulders of former Prime Minister late Jawaharlal Nehru to train his guns on the Congress party blaming it for Goa’s ills, both in the past and the present.
The Prime Minister also narrated his own connection to Goa, which he said was not only responsible for putting him on the path to Premiership as well as drew linkage between the coastal state and his famously coined phrase ‘Congress mukt Bharat’.
In his speech at the Bodgeshwar temple grounds near Mapusa, Modi blamed Nehru for delaying the liberation of Goa for 15 years after the independence of India. Liberating Goa, Modi said, would have taken just a few hours, had Nehru chosen to take the initiative.
“Many things have been buried in history. The truth may not have reached you. There have been games played for five to six decades. Two to three days back, I had made a reference to Goa in Parliament about how the Congress had tried to destroy the Goa freedom struggle. I told the country the truth about this,” the Prime Minister said.
“Many people do not know about the fact that Goa became independent 15 years after independence of India. It had to remain enslaved for 15 years more. India had a powerful force, it had the army, a strong navy,” Modi said, adding that even as Goans fought for their freedom and satyagrahis took on Portuguese bullets the Congress did not lend them a helping hand.
“The first Prime Minister of the country Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru spoke from the Red Fort and you can listen to his speech on Youtube. He said from the ramparts of the Red Fort, that he could not send the army to help the satyagrahis who were fighting satyagrahis and freeing Goa. That means you do what you want, if you want to die, die, live if you want to live. This is what he did!” Modi said, blaming the Congress for continuing to neglect Goa.
“This is how the Congress treated Goa and it continues to treat it now. The same Congress is seeking votes from you. Congress has always been pushing the state on the path of instability. Whenever the Congress wanted it would destabilise the governments here,” the Prime Minister said.
“Therefore, there is the development-oriented BJP and on the other hand there is the instability-oriented Congress,” he also said.
Modi who also prayed to Lord Bodgeshwar also went on to explain his connection to Goa and what it meant to him.
“I have been limitlessly blessed by God Bodgeshwar (Mapusa’s local deity), that in the important moments of my life, Goa has played a decisive role. The journey of this role I am in right now began from Goa. In June 2013, there was a BJP (national) executive meeting here. When I was in Goa in June 2013, the BJP had nominated me as the election campaign committee head for the Lok Sabha election,” Modi said.
“After that I was nominated as (BJP’s) Prime Ministerial candidate. It was an inspiration which emanated from this land of Goa. (Ex Defence Minister late Manohar Parrikar ) Parrikar had organised my meeting here. In that meeting, I uttered this phrase spontaneously. The phrase was Congress mukt Bharat. This word emerged from the soil of Goa, a land which has been blessed by saints. It just came out of my mouth like that. This phrase has now become a resolve amongst crores of people of India,” he added.
