PM Narendra Modi inaugurates expressway, clubs prosperity with security

The Purvanchal Expressway will strengthen the IAF and allow for the emergency landing of our fighter jets, said PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday attacked opposition parties and said the previous governments in Uttar Pradesh led by them reduced the state’s vital eastern part to mafiawaad and poverty, but the BJP government is now writing a new chapter of development.

Modi was addressing a rally after inagurating the 341-km Purvanchal Expressway, where he himself landed in a Indian Air Force (IAF) C-130 Hercules aircraft on a 3.2-km stretch developed as an emergency air strip. Later, an air show featuring the latest IAF fighter jets, such as Mirage and Sukhoi, was held. In his address, the PM noted prosperity and national security went hand in hand even as he slammed the previous governments for allegedly neglecting the urgent need to augment India’s defence capabilities.

“The Purvanchal Expressway will strengthen the IAF and allow for the emergency landing of our fighter jets. This should also scare those elements who had neglected our defence capability needs for decades.”

The inauguration of the Rs 22,500-crore six-lane road between Lucknow and Ghazipur followed a slugfest between the BJP and Akhilesh Yadav’s SP, which maintained that it was his state government that had begun the project.