"India Moving From Privilege To Potential Under PM Modi": Amit Shah

Referring to India's trajectory and the paradigm shift attained in the last nine years, Union Home Minister Amit Shah today said that there was a systemic shift from privilege to potential in the political culture during the Modi government's rule.

Mr Shah was addressing a session on 'Indian Polity-65 years Scenario and Paradigm Shift Under PM Modi' in Bengaluru.

"Earlier your status was decided by your birth and not by your potential. You will become a leader only if you are born into a power-driven certain family. But during BJP's rule, this tradition was upturned and political space was opened ajar for everyone. This paved the way for India's journey from potential to power," he said.

He said that the PM Modi style of governance adopted the bottom-to-top approach in which the last person in the lowest strata of the economic hierarchy is taken into consideration while formulating policies.

"BJP believes in the philosophy of integral humanism or Antyodaya. This philosophy forms the core of the BJP's policies. Could you imagine the pain of girls and women in more than 10 crore families that did not have toilets? It was PM Narendra Modi who thought of protecting their dignity and built toilets in every household," he said.

Mr Shah also cited the examples of providing gas cylinders to 10 crore women who bore the pain of cooking food for their families in firewood at the cost of their health.

He further added that the emergence of new political leadership from across the socio-economic spectrum led to the crumbling of the age-old vices of casteism, appeasement, and dynastic rule.

"This is one of the biggest achievements India made in the last nine years," he said.

He added that earlier policies were made on the basis of caste, opportunities were handed out on dynastic considerations and budget allocations were made to appease.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended these vices and this was a big paradigm shift for India. We never took decisions to please people but we did take decisions that were good for people," he said.

"If you vote for an individual you are likely to make mistake in choosing your leader. But if you take both the party and its leader into consideration you are likely to select the right government," Mr Shah further said.

He also added that the leaders of the parties are actually not individuals. Rather they are institutions that are anchored to the ideology of the party to which they belong.

He also appealed to the people to compare the performance of all the political parties in the last 75 years.

"Be it the Congress, the communists, the socialists or the BJP - all of these parties have ruled India in turns for pretty long periods. Every data related to the performance of these parties are available in the public domain. As aware citizens of this nation, you all should compare all the parties on the basis of their performances," he appealed.

He also said with immense conviction that the BJP has given the best performance among all the parties and in every aspect of the polity.

"Pick up any aspect of our polity and compare us with other parties and I can say with complete belief that you will find that we have given the best performance," he said.

He evoked the issue of BIMARU states and said that Congress got the opportunity to rule Bihar, undivided Uttar Pradesh, undivided Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. But after long Congress rule in the seventies, the Planning Commission named them BIMARU because of their horrible economic and human development indices.

He also added that after the BJP came to power in these states, they were all pulled out of their BIMARU status.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)