Vadnagar, Sep 17 (IANS): Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s life should be presented to children, teenagers and young people as an example of public service, responding to those who questioned the need for a nationwide campaign around Prime Minister’s 76th birthday and 25 years in public life.
Home Minister, speaking in Vadnagar on the launch of ‘Seva Sankalp Abhiyan’, said that the programme was intended not simply as a celebration but as an effort to familiarise future generations with PM Modi’s journey.
The campaign began on September 17, PM Modi’s birthday, and is scheduled to continue until October 17.
“Some people who look at things negatively have said, what is the need?” Today, I want to tell them that Modi ji’s life is such that every child, every adolescent and every young person in India should be introduced to it, so that in the coming days hundreds of Narendra Modis emerge and take India to its rightful place,” he asserted.
Shah said the objective is to provide inspiration to future generations who would be responsible for taking forward the goal of a developed India by 2047.
“We need many such youths, many such adolescents and many such children who, for the next three generations, can take their lives forward on the path of Narendra Modi and successfully follow the mantra of ‘India First’,” he said.
The remarks came at an event held near Sharmishtha Lake in Vadnagar, where Amit Shah also spoke about PM Modi’s early life, his political career and the service-oriented theme of the campaign.
He said it was his good fortune to be in PM Modi’s ancestral town on his birthday and offered prayers at the Hatkeshwar Mahadev temple for his long and healthy life.
“The Vadnagar-to-Varanasi journey being launched from the town is part of this effort to take the message of PM Modi’s public life to people,” he said.
He described Vadnagar as PM Modi’s birthplace and Varanasi as his “karmabhoomi”, and said the journey would travel from Hatkeshwar Mahadev to Kashi Vishwanath.
Shah said PM Modi had spent 25 years in public life without taking a day off from his commitment to public service, describing his work as having included the service of poor people, backward communities, Dalits and tribal communities.
“PM Modi had worked for long hours and had also sought to mobilise BJP workers around the principle of putting the nation first,” he added.
The Home Minister also spoke about PM Modi’s childhood in Vadnagar and the poverty in which he had grown up.
According to Shah, PM Modi did not allow those circumstances to become a source of resentment and instead developed a vision of development that should reach all sections of society.
“He placed before the country the idea that development should be all-encompassing and should touch everyone,” Shah said.
Shah also recalled the expansion of electricity supply in Gujarat’s villages. He said that during his earlier organisational work, villagers would ask leaders not to make lengthy speeches but to ensure that electricity was available at meal times.
“It was Narendra Modi government that provided round-the-clock electricity,” he said.
At the national level, Shah listed welfare measures including housing, household toilets, electricity, tap water, foodgrains, health cover and cooking gas among initiatives had benefited poor households.
He claimed that 25 crore people had been brought out of poverty during PM Modi’s tenure, while saying 80 crore people had benefited from various welfare measures.
“The government had expanded opportunities for women in areas including the armed forces, police, science, start-ups, drones and sports, and also proposed 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and state legislatures,” he added.
