In a change of strategy ahead of the sixth and seventh phase of Uttar Pradesh polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday sought to portray his party as 'nationalist' while accusing his rivals of not making any attempt to make the country self-dependent during their regime as they had their eyes on 'commission'.
"The battle of UP is between the parivaravadis (politics of family) and rashtrawadis (nationalists) and in this fight, the rashtrawadis will emerge victorious as they have the support of every section of the society," Modi said while addressing election meetings at Basti and Deoria, which would go the polls in the sixth phase of polling on Thursday.
He said that those who indulged in the politics of nepotism, forced the armed forces to depend on supply from abroad and never made any attempt to set up units for manufacturing defence goods.
"These people made our armed forces completely dependent on foreign countries....they liked taking commission.....now our government is going to set up a defense corridor in UP," the prime minister said.
Modi said that India had oil wells but the governments in the past did not make any attempt to explore them and therefore the country had to import oil from abroad.
The prime minister also referred to the ongoing fighting between Russia and Ukraine and said that the government was committed to bringing all the stranded students from Ukraine. "The government has always come to the rescue of our nationals in times of crisis," he added.
Modi also heaped praise on UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath saying that his government had been able to eradicate encephalitis from the region. "Earlier thousands of children and other people died every year owing to the disease but the state government has managed to control it," he said.
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