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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday asked BJP members to build the party's Lok Sabha poll campaign around its pro-poor work and the country's development and enhanced standing globally, asserting that winning 370 seats will be a true tribute to its key ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee. Mookerjee was a strident opponent of Article 370, which granted Jammu and Kashmir special rights. The Modi government scrapped the article in August 2019. Addressing a meeting of the BJP's national office-bearers ahead of the start of the party's convention, he said every booth worker should now focus on polling booths and ensure at least 370 more votes for the party at each in the upcoming polls than in 2019. Briefing reporters on Modi's speech, BJP General Secretary Vinod Tawde said the prime minister told the meeting that the opposition will raise "unnecessary and emotional issues" during the polls but party members should stick to the issues of development, pro-poor policies and the country's
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is carrying forward the legacy of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who was devoted to India and Indianism. Paying floral tributes at his statue here at the Civil Hospital on his 123rd birth anniversary, Adityanath said that the country will always remember the sacrifices made by Mookerjee for the "unity and integrity of India." He also described him as "a guiding light for India's industrial and food policies." The CM claimed that Mookerjee resigned from the first cabinet of the independent India and formed Jansangh when Jawaharlal Nehru adopted "appeasement" as a policy of his government. The differences between Syama Prasad Mookerjee and Jawaharlal Nehru came into a sharper relief when the Nehru government "attempted to play with the unity and security of the country by forcibly adding Article 370 to the Indian Constitution" he said. Mookerjee strongly opposed it and gave the slogan of 'Ek
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday paid his tributes to BJP's founding ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee on his birth anniversary, saying he dedicated his life to the making of a strong India. In a tweet, Modi described Mookerjee, a minister in the independent India's first government, as a great nationalist thinker and educationist who founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the forerunner to the Bharatiya Janata Party. His ideals and principles will inspire every generation in the country, he said. Born in 1901 in Calcutta, now Kolkata, Mookerjee was a well-known academician who made a mark as a politician in Bengal in the undivided India. An early champion of repealing Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, he joined hands with the RSS to launch Jana Sangh in 1951 and is counted, along with Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, as one of the ideological beacon for the BJP.
Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha on Friday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was working to fulfill Syama Prasad Mookerjee's "dream of Akhand Bharat". Addressing a programme on the death anniversary of Mookerjee, Saha claimed that West Bengal which he helped create was turning into "mini Pakistan". "Many people feared bloodshed in Jammu and Kashmir if Article 370 was repealed, but no blood was spilled there after the special status was revoked. PM Modi has been working as a torch-bearer to fulfill Syama Prasad Mookerjee's dream of Akhand Bharat," he said. "The soil where this great leader was born is literally turning into mini Pakistan. It was Mookerjee who ensured that parts of West Bengal and Assam do not get included in East Pakistan," he said. Warning BJP workers against any complicity, Saha asked them to maintain contact with the people and try to address their problems. "In 2018, several people from CPI(M) and Congress joined the BJP, helping it to form the government