On Panchayati Raj Diwas, PM Modi Trains Guns At Past Govts; But What's Special About Today, Know Here

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi on Monday trained his guns on previous opposition led governments for ignoring and avoiding “spending money in the rural areas”. He also claimed that his government is to be credited for ending “injustice” done to the villages in the past. The Prime Minister was speaking on the occasion of Panchayati Raj Diwas in Madhya Pradesh’s Rewa.

“Earlier governments used to avoid spending money for the village... so they were ignored. Many political parties were running their shops by dividing the people of the village. BJP has also ended this injustice being done to the villages. Our government has opened the coffers for the development of villages,” the Prime Minister said addressing the gathering in Rewa, according to a report by ANI.

Also Watch:

He further accused the political parties of trying to “divide the people of the village” in the past. He even claimed that after independence governments had destroyed the Panchayati Raj system of India.

"The system which existed hundreds of years, thousands of years ago, the same Panchayati Raj system was not trusted after independence. I always think, those people of Chhindwara whom you trusted for so long, why were they never serious about your development?.... The party that ran the govt the most after independence broke the trust of those villages...," PM Modi said.

Since 1980, the Chhindwara Lok Sabha constituency has been represented either by Congress leader Kamal Nath or his family members. Only one year - 1997 - was an exception to this when the seat was represented by BJP’s Sundar Lal Patwa. This seat is currently held by Kamal Nath’s son - Nakul Kamal Nath. In fact, in 2019 Lok Sabha election, Chhindwara and Guna were the only two seats that the BJP could not win.

ALSO WATCH: Nitish Kumar Takes Mission To Forge Oppn Unity To West Bengal, Will Meet Mamata Banerjee Today

He claimed that before 2014, the year when Bharatiya Janata Party led by Prime Minister Modi stormed to power in the country, only 6,000 panchayat buildings were constructed. However, in the eight years of BJP’s rule in India, more than 30,000 new panchayat buildings have been constructed.

"The previous government had connected optical fibre to less than 70-gram panchayats. It is our government, which has taken optical fibre to more than 2 lakh panchayats in the country," he added.

But why is Panchayati Raj Diwas being celebrated today?

Panchayati Raj Diwas celebrated in India on April 24, because it was on this day in year 1993 that the 73rd Constitutional amendment had come into force in the country. The amendment was introduced by and passed under Narasimha Rao-led Congress government in 1992.

The 73rd amendment to the constitution was brought with the intention to democratise governance at the grass roots level by decenralising power. For this an elaborate system of gram panchayats, sabhas, and zilla parishad’s were created where people of the villages could lead developmental work through their representatives. Several commissions - like the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee of 1957 and Ashok Mehta Committee of 1978 - had laid the ground work for the introduction of the 73rd Amendment.

(With agency inputs)