By DeshGujarat desk, Ahmedabad/Chennai, 15 January 2012

Here is a DeshGujarat’s narration in brief on Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s address on the eve of 42nd anniversary of Cho Ramaswamy’s Tughlak weekly in Chennai. The hall was jam-packed and some people were standing as there was no chair vacant. People enjoyed the speeches of Cho, Advani and Modi in different flavors. While Cho’s talk was full of wit, humor and straightness, Shri Advani’s speech was full of incidences, and some important relevant newsy messages.

Modi stayed away from a typical speech of his style, but read out an English speech which was serious, academic and somewhat technical, not entertaining, not full of wit, but needed at this point of time. Generally people seek hope, positiveness and energy from Modi’s speech, but here Modi was narrating the serious situation that the nation is facing on various fronts. So the speech was sleepy for those who expected typical and popular version of Modi, but those who concentrated purely on content were not unhappy.

-Modi started his speech with couple of Tamil words of greeting and wishes of Pongal. Modi termed Pongal as a festival of thanks giving to the sun God.
-Modi said Tamil Nadu and Gujarat share many things in common. They have many links from ancient days.
-Modi said people of Tamil Nadu loves coffee and he too likes a coffee, but a material to make perfect coffee comes from Gujarat.
-Modi also mentioned that ground nut oil comes from Gujarat. He also said that Tamil women loves cotton sarees and cotton comes from Gujarat.
-Modi described how the people of Saurasthra have become Tamilian.
-Modi said in his own constituency of Maninagar there are more than 20,000 Tamils. Modi said by inviting him, Cho has made ties between Tamil Nadu and Gujarat more stronger.
-Modi said both states are ruled by non-Congress Chief Ministers.
-Modi described Cho as Ashtavdhani Cho and congratulated him.
-Modi shared some concerns as a citizen of country.
-The great poet and philosopher of TN Thiruvalur had said what good governance is, “Generating wealth, saving wealth, maintaining wealth, and spending it for the welfare of the people if the duty of good government.”

From here on, Modi turned his speech to a serious note. He made serious charges against the Congress led UPA government on number of fronts. Modi narrated the serious situation the country is facing on economic, security related and governance front.

He said, “last week someone asked me a question that in 1950 the Indian economy was bigger than China. Today China’s economy is three times bigger than India. What is the reason? The answer is simple. The economy did not take off, because, after the independence, Indian policies were not growth oriented. It was status quo governance. It was more focused on consolidation of power, and position of political party, rather than consolidation and expansion of economy. The same situation continued for long. It took 40 years for ruling party to realize that the policies they were pursuing were not right. But till that time the rest of the world including China had leaped ahead. In fact even in smaller countries like Tiwan and Korea per capita GDP had grown 20 times in last fifty years compare to India’s three fold increase in same period even after so called liberalization of 1991, and only half hearted efforts were made.”

He said, “Today the situation is even worse, the country is passing through a very critical phase. On one hand the expectations of the people are rising. Also the abilities of people to fulfill these expectations are also rising. There is willingness in our people to work hard. We are a young nation, and our youth has the aspiration and the ability to sail very high, but unfortunately there is a total lack of direction in governance at the national level. The Congress ruled government in the centre is total lose. Moreover it is the most corrupt government after independence.’

Making an important point, Modi said, “Rajiv Gandhi had once said that if 100 paisa are sent from Delhi, only 15 paisa reaches the common man, but this party has done little to change the situation. Many of times I feel that it is easy to criticize but difficult to deliver, no I am saying all this with confidence and conviction that it is all possible. I speak from my own experience and the experience of Gujarat.”

Modi attacked the vote-bank politics, dynasty culture in Indian politics in the end of his speech. In fact Modi described dynasty culture as great threat to democracy. Modi termed dynasty rule as new kind of Raja Maharaja tradition.

Watch the entire speech in video presented above.