Opposition perturbed with Modi's popularity: Venkaiah

Hyderabad, April 5 (INN): Union Minister for Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu has claimed that the political opponents were unable to digest BJP's landslide victory and the popular mandate against them.

"They are also perturbed over the fact that our government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is gaining popularity both nationally and internationally day by day. Our ideological opponents are not able to come to terms with the fact that BJP has become world's No. 1 political party in terms of membership and is still gaining ground," Venkaiah Naidu said while addressing a press conference here on Sunday.

Venkaiah Naidu claimed that people see their Messiah in the Prime Minister and youth look up to him with a confident ray of for fulfillment of their aspirations and ambitions. "Such is the level of confidence people reposed in the leadership of the BJP that we have gone on winning consecutively all Assembly elections state after state, be it Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir. We are there from Arunachal to Andaman, Kanyakumari to Kashmir. We are in coalition in Nagaland, a minority-majority dominated state and we are now in J&K again a minority-majority state. We need to expand and consolidate our base," he said.

The Union Minister said that the BJP Government inherited very bad economy. "We have had to deal with all sorts of deficits left by the previous regime - fiscal deficit trade deficit, revenue deficit, current account deficit, govern once deficit and above all trust deficit. About 43.3%of revenues are spent as Interest payment on debt servicing. Days of scams and scandals are over. Desperation and diffidence has gone. Leadership is back, investor confidence is back and ease of doing business is back. The country needs growth and jobs. To this end, our government has been working relentlessly. Apart from the various affirmative administrative actions in the past nine months, 46 Bills in Lok Sabha and 36 in Rajya Sabha were passed since we assumed office," he said.

In the recently held transparent bidding of Coal Block auction, Venkaiah said about Rs 2 lakh crores revenue would be earned over a period of 30 years and the entire proceeds will be transferred to the states alienating. Coal-bearing states are the biggest beneficiaries and this is in line with the Prime Minister's vision of cooperative federalism. "Response to our PM's foreign policy Initiatives Is quite encouraging. Country has started reaping the dividends. PM's visits to countries like USA, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Bhutan, Nepal, Mauritius and Fizi have furthered diplomatic relations and won over many potential foreign Investors who see great opportunities to invest in India because of the able leadership of our PM," he said.

The Union Minister also spoke about other initiatives taken by the BJP Government across the country.