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Indian PM asks party leaders to focus on pro-poor agenda

Xinhua, August 24, 2016 Adjust font size:

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked his party leaders to focus on pro-poor agenda, saying that nationalism is the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's strength and "the bed rock of our ideology."

"Create an image of the party and government in the hearts of the poorest of poor. Emerge not just as a political force by winning polls, but also as a social force," Modi told a gathering of his party's top 400 leaders in the capital on Tuesday.

Urging party leaders to shed the party's negtaive image that it has failed to protect the weaker sections of society, the prime minister said: "Nearly 80 percent of party workers are not from a privileged background. Don't let the misinformation succeed."

"When the BJP speaks of the poor and reaches out to them, our opponents get rattled," he told the gathering, flanked by party chief and close confidante Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley by his side.

Modi's statements came at a time when the party is eyeing on assembly polls in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh and the PM's home state of Gujarat next year, but has been blamed for atrocities on lower-caste people like the public shaming of four Dalits by cow protectors. Endit