Senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar said Friday that fuel prices were high now because of the Ukraine war and that the help of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom he described as the world’s “most popular leader”, had been sought to end the war.
“Ninety per cent of fuel used in the country is imported. It is dependent on the global market. The fuel prices have increased after the start of the war in Ukraine. We will see the result after the war ends and the world has reached out to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take an initiative to end the war as early as possible,” the former Union minister told reporters in Pune.
“The BJP government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power at the Centre in 2014 with a full majority, for the first time in 30 years since Rajiv Gandhi came to power with a full majority in 1984,” Javadekar said.
“The Modi government will come to power again with the BJP winning 350 or more seats while the NDA tally will be more than 400 seats in the next Lok Sabha elections,” he further said.
The BJP has launched a nationwide campaign to highlight the achievements of the Modi-led government in the last nine years while seeking a third term for him as prime minister in 2024.
Javadekar said the Modi government had succeeded because it was based only on the politics of development and that the country’s global image had improved in the nine years of his rule. He said India did not command much respect in the world in 2014. But, he added, there has been a drastic change in the last nine years with Modi becoming “the most popular leader in the world”.
“There has been justice to all sections of society under the Modi government. The Modi government’s biggest strength is the confidence shown by its people in it. Prime Minister Narendra Modi believes in ‘nation first’,” he said, adding that Modi had been heading governments for the past 22 years, either at the state level or at the Centre.
The BJP leader also said the country had witnessed good economic growth with exports having increased by a minimum of 7 per cent in the last three years.
Among the major decisions taken by the Union government, according to Javadekar, is the merger of cantonment boards in the nearest civic bodies. “There are 68 cantonment boards across the country and their residents complain of insufficient civic facilities and development… Now, the problem can be solved as the Union government wants to merge cantonment areas with the nearest civic area,” he said.