At maiden press briefing, PM Modi says ‘BJP will return to power’, but takes no questions

New Delhi: In his maiden press conference since assuming power in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday termed the Lok Sabha elections as “spectacular” and asserted that the BJP will come back to power with a full majority on its own.
“The election has been amazing (shandar). Elections were held in a positive spirit. A government with full majority will come back after remaining in power for five years. This is probably happening after a very long time. This is a big deal in itself,” PM Modi told a large contingent of reporters after wrapping up his campaign for a second term.
In a surprise move, the Prime Minister showed up on the dais for a scheduled press conference by BJP president Amit Shah, who gave a detailed report card of the campaigning as well as the performance of the NDA government. However, Modi told reporters that he will not take any questions because the press conference is being addressed by Shah and said that in BJP’s system, the discipline has to be followed. The Prime Minister said India should impress the world with its diversity and democracy. “I believe some things we can proudly say to the world. This is the world’s largest democracy, it is our responsibility to take the power of this democracy to the world. We should impress the world with the diversity of the democracy,” Modi added He further said the start of an honest government started on May 17, 2014, a day after the previous Lok Sabha election results were announced. He also said there was a time when Indian Premier League had to be shifted out of India due to polls, but under the current government, elections can be held even when the Ramzan was being observed and Easter commemorated.. The Prime Minister said, during the campaigning, he told people that “I have come to thank you for your blessings….The country has always been with us. So in a way the campaigning was a way of saying thank you to the people. Even today, I am here to thank you and thank them through you.” Modi said work to fulfil promises made in BJP’s manifesto will be started as soon as the party comes to power.
Meanwhile, Shah echoed similar views and said the BJP government will return to power with a bigger mandate and added they are confident of securing more than 300 seats. He further said the Modi-led government has launched a total of 133 schemes to uplift all sections of society.
When asked about opposition’s allegations that both Modi and Shah were responsible for lowering the political discourse during the campaigning, the BJP president said “what else do you expect from the opposition,” but BJP has never initiated low quality debate.