Highlighting his government’s non-partisan approach to awarding the Bharat Ratna and Padma honours, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told News18 Network in a mega exclusive interview that these awards are not the copyright of any party or his personal property. Speaking to Network18 Group Editor-in-Chief Rahul Joshi, the Prime Minister said the awards are the country’s to give to recipients and added that his government had recently awarded the Bharat Ratna to non-BJP icons.
“We gave the Bharat Ratna to Pranab Mukherjee, Narasimha Rao, Chaudhary Charan Singh, Karpoori Thakur. Nobody in this country questioned our choices. Everybody understood it was long due and well-deserved. They were from opposition parties and had even criticised us in the past, but our decision was not based on such things,” he said.
“Consider the Padma awardees — Mulayam Singh, Tarun Gogoi, PA Sangma, SM Krishna… were all from other parties but we gave them Padma awards for their contributions to their respective fields. It is the country’s award to give, not a party’s. It’s not Modi’s personal property. BJP doesn’t have a copyright on it.
If you are interested, a story to look at is how Padma awards have changed in the country. We have transformed it. We should be lauded for the thought behind such decisions, not questioned about the choice of recipients,” the PM added.
Responding to a question on Sharad Pawar, who was awarded the Padma Vibhushan by his government in 2017, comparing him to Russian President Vladimir Putin, PM Modi said he has immense respect for the NCP patriarch but said the Maratha strongman’s statement was contradictory.
“I respect him a lot. It doesn’t matter whether people who have been in public life for long are with us or against us, we respect them. But this means that he is proud of receiving the award from a government headed by someone he sees as Putin. This is a big contradiction.”
The Prime Minister also highlighted the inclusive approach of his government when it comes to welfare policies.
“When we came in 2014, did we make any policy that will stop anybody? These are their sins. It is their (Congress’s) sins that the country is paying for. If they had followed secularism in the true sense, had done social justice in the true sense, not done vote bank politics, then they would not have had to roam around with fake papers today. I believe that whatever I have been doing for the past 10 years, the results will be such that whatever questions are asked, we will be able to answer them, based on our actions. We will give justice to everybody,” PM Modi said.
“How did our country get the first Adivasi President? Through our thought process. We got three chances to make the President of India. Once during Atal-ji’s time, twice during my tenure. Who did we elect the first time? First, we made a member of the minority community, Abdul Kalam. Then I made a Dalit (Ramnath Kovind), then an Adivasi woman (Droupadi Murmu). Our actions show our thought process,” he added.
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