JAMMU, Feb 6: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said the Government has completed Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Railway Line three decades after the work on it was started.
“Jammu and Kashmir’s Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Railway Line was approved in 1994. The work was pending for years. We completed the work on railway line after three decades in 2025,” Modi said replying to debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address.
Meanwhile, Modi launched a scathing attack on the Congress in the Rajya Sabha accusing it of adopting a policy of ‘family first’ and appeasement, and said the BJP Government only believed in the policy of ‘nation first’ and ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’.
He criticised the Congress for having “hatred and anger” towards B R Ambedkar and said this was reflected in not giving due recognition like the ‘Bharat Ratna’ to the architect of India’s Constitution.
Accusing the grand old party of not respecting Ambedkar, he said the Congress is now forced to speak out ‘Jai Bhim’ and also they get choked while speaking so.
Modi also hit out at the economic policies of the Congress Government and the ‘Licence quota raj’ that gave rise to corruption and affected the country’s economic progress and growth.
He also said the entire Hindu community was blamed and its image tarnished across the world for the economic mismanagement and wrong policies of the Congress ‘royal family’ that led to slow growth, which was coined as the ‘Hindu rate of growth’
Modi also targeted the Congress Government for imposing Emergency in the country during which the entire opposition was put behind bars and hand-cuffed. He also cited several examples of film stars, singers and writers against whom action was taken for not lauding the Congress during that time.
Taking a swipe at Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders, he said those carrying copies of the Constitution have scant respect for it as he recalled how Nehru amended the Constitution during his first stop-gap Government curtailing the freedom of speech and expression of common people and did not even wait for elections in doing so.
Asserting that his Government’s policies are aimed at ‘Santushtikaran’ (satisfaction) and not ‘Tushtikaran’ (appeasement), he said the people of the country have understood, tested and supported BJP’s model of development.
“Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ (development of all while taking everyone along) is our collective responsibility. It would be a big mistake to expect ‘Sabka Saath-Sabka Vikas’ from the Congress. This is beyond their thinking and does not fit in their roadmap. In the Congress model, ‘Family First’ is supreme. That’s why its policies, its speech, its behaviour are centred around that family only,” he said in his 90-minute long speech in the Rajya Sabha.
Targeting the Congress Governments of the past for the slow rate of growth, he said the restrictions and Licence Raj policies were responsible for it.
