Apr 30, 2024 07:20 PM IST
PM Modi said the former union agriculture minister hadn’t done anything for drought-prone areas of the region such as Solapur
MUMBAI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday launched a sharp offensive against Nationalist Congress Party (SP) president Sharad Pawar, saying it was time to punish him for not keeping his 2009 promise to bring water to Solapur district which faces acute water shortages.
PM Modi said the former union agriculture minister hadn’t done anything for drought-prone areas of the region such as Solapur or farmers across the country when he was the minister and presented his government as a contrast, saying his government had completely irrigation projects and ensured an increase in the minimum support price.
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PM Modi said Sharad Pawar, whom he called a “powerful leader from Maharashtra, pledged to bring water to Solapur back in 2009 when he fought the Lok Sabha elections from Madha. “Was he been able to give you the water?… It is time to teach him a lesson. His stint as an MP was so dismal that he did not dare to contest from the constituency after that. There were 99 incomplete irrigation projects in the country, 26 from Maharashtra. It is my mission to reach water to every field and household. We have completed 63 of the projects,” PM Modi told an election rally at Madha in Solapur, one of the three he addressed in the state on Tuesday.
Modi further stated, “The tall leader (from Maharashtra) was a union agriculture minister for ten long years but could not give an adequate fair remunerative price to cane, which was ₹200 a quintal in 2014 and has reached ₹340 a quintal now. We resolved the issue of ₹10,000 crore income tax of the sugar factories for years. The Modi government waived it off during our second term. It has benefited cane growers in Maharashtra to a large extent. I would, as the chief minister of Gujarat, write to the then agriculture minister (Pawar) urging him to resolve it, but no heed was paid to it. The procurement of agricultural produce has increased to ₹20 lakh crore in the last ten years from ₹7.5 lakh crore during the UPA stint,” he said.
Speaking at a rally in Marathwada’s Latur, PM Modi claimed that the Opposition’s INDIA bloc planned to share the PM’s post if they won the elections. They have come up with a formula of “five PMs in five years”, who will eventually loot the country.
PM Modi also repeated the claim that the Congress could introduce an inheritance tax. “If you are leaving 10 acres of land after your death, your legal heirs will get only 5 acres each, and the remaining will go to Congress. Congress has given power and privilege to its own first family and its new generation through inheritance,” he said.
He also claimed that his government has made the country safe and secure. “If you go through the headlines of the newspapers ten years ago, there would be headlines that the union government sent a dossier on terrorists to Pakistan. There would be terrorist attacks in Delhi and Mumbai,” he said, adding that his government conducted a surgical strike inside Pakistan.
