Vikas, Vikas, Vikas Is My Only Focus, Says PM Modi

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday told BJP leaders and workers to focus solely on his agenda for vikas or development and warned that Opposition parties were trying to derail that narrative by raising irrelevant issues.

"Forces are trying to distract us from our course. All our members will have to stay unaffected by them. We must stick to our agenda despite repeated attempts to disrupt our efforts to do developmental work," the PM was quoted by union minister Rajnath Singh as saying at a meeting of the BJP's national executive.

"Vikas, vikas, vikas is my only focus and it is our country's sole solution to all problems," Mr Singh quoted the Prime Minister as saying, and also, "The opposition will drag us into negative politics but we need to focus on our agenda let's not get trapped by negative style of politics of opposition."
 
Mr Singh, who is the union home minister, was briefing reporters after the two-day meeting of BJP leaders.

The Prime Minister made the concluding address, also cautioning leaders not to speak out of turn on every issue. There is a separate department to articulate the party's point of view, he said, adding, "TV cameras seek you out not because you are important but because what you say makes headlines," he reportedly told those attending the national executive.

The Prime Minister, Rajnath Singh said, wants every BJP worker to reach out to villages across India. "We have successfully reached our target to provide electricity to villages that have been deprived of it for 65 years... No allegations of corruption in the last 22 months since the time our government took over... all workers have to equally feel for the campaign... (for) schemes like 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao'," the Prime Minister said.

With the BJP-led central government under attack from opposition parties over freedom of speech debate, the arrest of students on charges of sedition at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University and the controversy over the "Bharat Mata Ki Jai" slogan dominated discussions at the executive.

Earlier on Sunday, Union minister and senior party leader Arun Jaitley told the media that the BJP supports freedom of expression and it can coexist with nationalism. This was also part of the political resolution adopted at the meet.

"We support freedom of expression. Free speech and nationalism co-exist," he said and added that the Constitution "gives freedom for dissent but not for country's destruction."