NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday praised his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying the country has placed its faith in the BJP for the past one-and-a-half years and that the party has been on a “continuous rise.”Hailing the major victories of the BJP, after a brief setback in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, PM Modi said: “BJP has become the first choice of everyone in the country”.“Recently, elections were held in Bihar and people gave a record mandate to the BJP. Two days ago, municipal corporation election results for major cities in Maharashtra were held. One of the world’s biggest municipal corporations, Mumbai, gave a historic mandate to the BJP, making the party win for the first time… In Kerala municipal elections also, people greatly supported the BJP, and Thiruvananthapuram has a BJP mayor for the first time,” PM Modi was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Hitting out at the rival Congress, PM accused the party of “handing over Assam’s land to infiltrators for votes during its rule in the northeastern state”.PM Modi alleged that infiltration kept increasing during the Congress rule in Assam for decades, with illegal immigrants encroaching upon forests, animal corridors and traditional institutions.”The BJP government is protecting Assam’s identity and culture by evicting infiltrators who encroached land,” he said in Assam’s Kaliabor.”Voters trust BJP for good governance and development. In the Bihar polls, people gave the party record votes and seats even after 20 years in power,” he said.PM Modi’s remark comes days after BJP pulled off a massive victory in Mumbai’s BMC elections, wresting power from the ally-turned-rival Uddhav Thackeray.BJP-led Mahayuti crossed the halfway mark of 114 in the 227-member body, but not by much. BJP won 89 seats and Shinde’s Shiv Sena 29 to gain a narrow lead. In effect, the BJP will need Eknath Shinde’s backing for big decisions.The Uddhav-Raj Thackeray combine won 71 seats (Uddhav’s Sena winning 65 and Raj Thackeray’s MNS taking 6), retaining a large chunk of wards in the city’s Marathi heartland but losing out on the control of Asia’s richest civic body.PM Modi laid the foundation stone for the Rs 6,957-crore Kaziranga Elevated Corridor, and virtually flagged off two Amrit Bharat trains in Assam’s Nagaon district.Modi, who arrived here from Guwahati in the final leg of his two-day visit to the state, performed ‘Bhoomi Poojan’ of the Kaziranga project.The corridor is aimed at ensuring safe wildlife movement across the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve, reduce road accidents on National Highway-715, and boost ecotourism, while generating local employment opportunities, an official said.It forms part of the four-laning of the Kaliabor-Numaligarh section of NH-715, and includes around 34.45 km of elevated wildlife-friendly corridors, along with bypasses at Jakhalabandha and Bokakhat, he said.PM Modi also reviewed a model of the Kaziranga Elevated Corridor.The Prime Minister also virtually flagged off two Amrit Bharat Express trains – Dibrugarh-Gomti Nagar (Lucknow) and Kamakhya-Rohtak.
