Gandhinagar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday stressed the need for a full-majority government at the Centre, saying “hung parliaments” stalled the country’s progress in last three decades. The Prime Minister, who was addressing a meeting in Surat, pointed out that the country had paid a high price for unstable coalition governments which had dragged the country back in time. High on populism, the Prime Minister was low key on announcements as it was just a day ahead of the beginning of the 16th Lok Sabha, but he was quick to state that the country had suffered from instability for almost three decades before it elected a stable government. What the PM did not state was that these 30 years also covered the period of BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government. “Under a hung Parliament and coalition governments, progress suffered and India even went backwards on development,” he added.
“Stable government lead strongly, but a coalition government shirks responsibility, under the alibi that it cannot cannot take decisions.” “In 2014, you elected a stable government with full majority. After four-and-a-half years, it has given you results,” he added. He also recounted the virtue of demonetisation, saying it had wiped out black money from real estate sector and made the poor and the middle class fulfill their dreams of buying their own houses. While in Surat, the Prime Minister launched numerous development projects worth crores of rupees put forth by the Gujarat government and the Surat Municipal Corporation. He also dedicated to the nation the new international terminal at Surat Airport, developed at a cost of Rs 354 crore. Later, he dedicated to the country a state-of-the-art National Memorial for Salt Satyagraha to commemorate the Salt March undertaken by the Mahatma from Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad that culminated at Dandi beach in Navsari district of South Gujarat on the Arabian Sea coast. The 24-day march, from March 12 to April 6 in 1930, with its 78 participants who walked the 384-km-distance, was a turning point in the Indian Freedom Struggle.
