India becomes third country after US, Israel to hit terrorists on foreign land: Amit Shah

At the Bharatiya Janata Party workers’ meeting in Godda, Jharkhand, on Tuesday, national president Amit Shah said that India, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had joined the league of United States and Israel, nations that had the will to hit at terrorists irrespective of the location of their hideouts.

Appealing to people to vote Modi back to power in 2019, Shah said, “Our forces took revenge for the Pulwama terror attack, in which 44 CRPF personnel were killed, by carrying out airstrikes on (terrorist outfit) Jaish-e-Mohammed’s camps in Pakistan’s Balakot. America and Israel are the world’s only two countries known for taking revenge by entering a foreign land. India has now become the third country that did it and can do it.”

He added, “It was the Modi government’s astute diplomatic moves that forced Pakistan to hand over Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot Abhinandan Varthaman within 48 hours.”

Shah was addressing the party’s cluster meeting, attended by more than 40,000 workers, including Shakti Kendra office-bearers, who are micro-level election managers of the party, and office-bearers of state, district and mandal (block) levels at Ramnagar, Railway Ground.

The saffron party, in the run-up to the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, has formed various clusters of three to four Lok Sabha constituencies to plan better election strategies by holding meetings with booth and panchayat level workers of the respective parliamentary seats.

Shah held the party’s last cluster meet of three Lok Sabha constituencies: Godda, Rajmahal, and Dumka. Chief minister Raghubar Das, BJP state president Laxman Gilua, Jharkhand election-in-charge Mangal Pandey and general secretary (organisation) Dharmpal Singh also participated in the meet.

Taking a jibe at the opposition parties’ Grand Alliance, Shah said, “Who is the leader of the Grand Alliance? What is its policy? Na niti hai na neta hai (It has neither a policy nor a leader). If it forms a government, can it give a befitting reply to Pakistan and terrorists? This can only be done by the Narendra Modi government.”

He said that if the Modi-led BJP government were to be voted back to power, “we would see India emerging as the world’s most powerful country in the next five years”.

Speaking about Jharkhand’s development, Shah said that the wheels of development had rolled for the first time in the state during the Raghubar Das regime, because people gave him a stable government.

“The Centre and the state governments jointly pumped in more than Rs 3.12 lakh crore in the past four-and-a-half years for the state’s development. During UPA II, this amount was only Rs 55,253 crore. The state witnessed wholesome development including setting up of airports, national highways, railway lines, power plants, dams, engineering colleges, and many others,” said Shah.

He added, “The BJP government has put special emphasis on tribal development. Funds worth Rs 9,000 crore were released from the District Mineral Development Fund for the tribal populace. Overall, Rs 20,700 crore were diverted for their development.”