Northeast rejects ‘politics of hate’, says Indian premier

Bengaluru: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday that the people of the Northeast have rejected the “politics of hate” by “unanimously” voting the BJP to power.

The BJP had on Saturday wrested Tripura, the Left bastion, and received an invitation to be part of the government in Nagaland, while Meghalaya elected a hung Assembly.

Modi, while addressing a youth convention in Tumakuru about 70km from here via videoconferencing, said the poll results of Tripura had given him immense joy.

“The brothers and sisters of the Northeast have rejected the politics of hate by unanimously voting the BJP to power,” he said.

The convention is being organised to mark the silver jubilee celebrations of the Ramakrishna Vivekananda Ashram in Tumakuru and celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Sister Nivedita, a social worker and a disciple of Swami Vivekananda.

 I don’t see the Northeast poll results through the lens of victory and defeat of political parties, but what is important is that the whole country became participants in the happiness of people residing there.”

 - Narendra Modi| Prime Minister of India 

Modi, speaking on the subject of ‘Youth power: A Vision for New India’, said a fitting reply to radicalisation could only be given by the resolve for integration.

Hitting out at the previous Left and Congress regimes in the Northeast, Modi said the people there had felt cut off from the Indian mainstream because of policies and decisions that alienated them, but his government had been working relentlessly to wipe off this feeling.

“Our government has resolved to work in such a way that no part of the country and no group feels alienated and we have proved this by working towards it,” he said.

“This wave of integration can also be felt among the people of Karnataka,” he said.

The mandate which the people of Northeast have given is in itself is a very big change, Modi said.

“For the country’s unity, showing solidarity to the sentiments of the Northeast is a necessity and very big thing,” he said.

A BJP supporter wears a mask of Narendra Modi at a victory rally. Reuters

Modi said the results of Northeast Assembly polls had created an environment of festivity in the entire country.

The Prime Minister said the Assembly polls had also brought the whole country together to celebrate in the happiness of the people living there.

“I don’t see the Northeast poll results through the lens of victory and defeat of political parties, but what is important is that the whole country became participants in the happiness of people residing there,” he said.

Modi said such occasions were rare that accomplishments of the Northeast had become accomplishments of the whole country.

“We all saw this happening when many Indians, who were glued to the television as though they themselves were in the electoral battlefield, started to realise the happiness, dreams and sentiments of the people of the Northeast as their own,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Congress’s euphoria over recent bypoll victories may have been punctured after the party’s dismal performance in the Northeast, but its leaders believe the results will have no bearing on Karnataka, which they are confident of holding on to.

A party leader claimed the BJP’s victory in the Northeast was an “aberration” that did not reflect the countrywide “resurgence of the Congress”.

Though the Congress failed to get a majority in Meghalaya and did not win a single seat in either Tripura or Nagaland, the leaders insisted they were not troubled by the results and were confident of emerging victorious in Karnataka, where elections are to be held shortly.

Sources in the Congress stressed the Northeast had its own compulsions and was “no real lesson for South India”.

After the poor Congress performance in elections in the northeastern states, the results of which were declared on Saturday, the party’s morale was at a low, with few leaders willing to speak out about the loss.

With Congress president Rahul Gandhi out of country, the leaders preferred not to analyse or talk about the defeat.

Some party insiders admitted that the morale of the party, boosted after the recent victories in bye-elections in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and its performance in Gujarat Assembly elections, had been badly dented after the Northeast results.