Policies formulated under the Narendra Modi government are not driven by vote banks, but by the intent to eliminate problems of the people, Union Home minister Amit Shah said in New Delhi on Tuesday. He was addressing a gathering at The Indian Express Excellence in Governance Awards in the national capital.
“Our decisions may have been bitter but they were for the good of the people. We never think about votebanks while making policies. We only think about solving problems,” Shah said, and referred to its decisions to introduce the Goods and Services Tax as well as Direct Benefit Transfer which faced opposition from several quarters.
“The Modi government does not make policies to please people. It makes policies that will be good for the people. When we brought the GST, some people opposed it. When we brought DBT, it was opposed. It was natural, there were middlemen who would lose out,” Shah said.
The Home minister further said that the government’s aim is to resolve problems completely instead of making incremental progress. “We are not saying we will make so many toilets this year. We make targets such as by the end of 2024, every house in the country will have a toilet. We have an approach of eliminating the problem,” the Home minister added.
Taking potshots at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Shah cited official figures and said that tax collections stood at Rs 1.5 lakh crore during FY 2022-23. “This is “for those who call it ‘Gabbar Singh Tax’,” he said.
Shah further said that governance models should build trust between the government and the people and take into account local situations and conditions. He also said that the model should be such that the last person standing in the queue also gets the benefit. “It should be inclusive, corruption-free, transparent, accountable, sensitive, innovative and stable. It should strike at the root of problems and build trust between the government and the people.”
Shah also made a strong case against importing policies aimed at good governance. “If we try to impose an imported model from a country with a population of 2-10 crore onto a nation as diverse as ours, we are bound to fail. And for this, the thought process must start at the grassroots level and reach the top. And the top must be so open that it must take the smallest of suggestions seriously,” Shah said.