SAYING THAT the people of Maharashtra and Haryana had reposed their trust in his party’s chief ministers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday praised Devendra Fadnavis and Manohar Lal Khattar. He said Fadnavis was the first Maharashtra chief minister to complete a full term in 50 years, while the Khattar government took along all sections of society. Modi and BJP president Amit Shah addressed party workers at the BJP headquarters here after the results were declared. When governments often lose power after five years, it is remarkable that the BJP have been given a fresh mandate for five years in Maharashtra and Haryana, he said. This shows people’s trust in us, he added. Both the chief ministers have won people’s trust despite having no prior administrative experience when they took over in 2014, Modi said, adding, “People have put their stamp of approval on the works on these chief ministers.” He said they would work even harder to serve the people in the next five years. Modi recalled his work as an organisational leader of the BJP in Haryana, and said the party would often fight elections as a junior partner of one party or another in the state, and would consider itself lucky if it crossed even 10 seats in Assembly polls before 2014. He also sought to underscore the party’s rise in Maharashtra since 2014, noting that it used to be a junior partner to the Shiv Sena before. Political stability is a must for an economically important state like Maharashtra, he said, lauding Fadnavis’ feat of completing his full term. The BJP-run states work “seamlessly” to implement central schemes while the Opposition-ruled states are busier in renaming them, said Modi. At the meeting, Shah hailed the mandate, saying the party had won the first round of elections in the Modi 2.0 government. He noted that both the states were never traditional BJP strongholds. — With PTI inputs
