400 seats in 2024: Modi reiterates Lok Sabha election war cry

Taking a swipe at the opposition, particularly the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday (February 11) reiterated his call of “24 mein 400 paar” (BJP-led NDA will get more than 400 seats in the 2024 general elections) and hoped his party should get 370 seats.

Addressing a rally of tribals, called Janjatiya Mahasabha, or grand council of tribal communities, organised in Jhabua of Madhya Pradesh, PM Modi exhorted his audience to help the BJP-led NDA achieve this goal. The prime minister, while virtually addressing an event organised to mark the 200th birth anniversary of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Moolshankar Tewari, the founder of Arya Samaj, at his birthplace Tankara in Gujarat’s Morbi district, stressed the need for an education system based on the Indian value system.

Highlights

Here are some of the highlights of both addresses:

In Jhabua, the prime minister said his visit to Madhya Pradesh, irrespective of what is being written about it, was not aimed at the coming parliamentary elections.

“The assembly election results in Madhya Pradesh already showed the mood of the people here... I have come here as a servant,” he said while reiterating the phrase “24 mein 400 paar” (NDA beyond 400 seats) he coined during his speech on the concluding day of Parliament.

“Even opposition leader is saying in Parliament ki ‘24 mein 400 paar’,” he said even as the audience reiterated the phrase in tandem.

“When the opposition said ‘24 mein 400 paar’, I said I have also heard this that NDA will cross 400. But I have also heard that the BJP alone will cross 370. And I will tell you how to do it,” PM Modi further said in an oblique reference to his government scrapping Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.

Thanks Kharge

He thanked Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge for referring to BJP's election slogan ‘abki baar 400 paar’ in the Rajya Sabha, though sarcastically. He said he accepted the swipe as a blessing.

While addressing an event organised to mark the 200th birth anniversary of Swami Dayanand Saraswati at Tankara, the birthplace of the founder of the Arya Samaj, in Gujarat, PM Modi stressed the need for an education system based on Indian values. “An education system based on Indian values is the need of the hour. Arya Samaj schools have been a centre for this. The country is now expanding it through the National Education Policy. It is our responsibility to connect the society with these efforts,” PM Modi said in his address.

Extolling the virtues of the movement that the founder of the Arya Samaj led, PM Modi said, “Swami Dayanand Saraswati at that time showed us how our orthodoxy and social evils had harmed us. He had advocated for the equal rights for women in the society.”

He was proud to have been born in Gujarat, the land of Dayanand Saraswati, he said.