Modi calls oppn ‘power hungry’ on row over attending Ganesh Puja at CJI’s house

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday slammed the Congress and other opposition parties for creating a controversy over his visit to the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud’s house on Ganesh Utsav, saying that the power-hungry people busy dividing and breaking the society are having trouble with Ganesh Puja.
“ The Britishers followed the policy of divide and rule. They used to hate Ganesh Utsav. Ganesh Utsav is not just a festival of faith, but it played an important role in the freedom struggle. Dividing us in the name of castes was a weapon of the British. Bal Gangadhar Tilak used community celebrations to awaken the collective conscience of the country. Today, everyone participates in Ganesh Utsav without any discrimination. But its celebration has once again become a point of contention, much like it did during the British colonial era. Even today, the power-hungry people of India who are busy dividing and breaking society are having trouble with Ganesh Puja. You must have seen that the people of Congress and its ecosystem have been angry for the last few days because I participated in Ganpati Puja,” Modi said.
He was launching the Subhadra Yojana in Odisha under which over 1 crore women of the state would get ₹10,000 a year.
Modi said the Congress committed a bigger crime in Karnataka. “These people put the idol of Lord Ganesha behind bars. The whole country is disturbed by those pictures. This hateful thinking and the mentality of poisoning society is very dangerous for our country. That’s why we should not let such hateful forces move forward,” he said.
Modi said the whole country is celebrating the Hyderabad Mukti Divas on September 17 and spoke about the efforts of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in uniting the country.
“The foreign powers wanted to break the country while opportunists agreed to break the country into pieces. In that situation, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel came forward and united the country by showing extraordinary willpower. Hyderabad was freed by curbing the anti-India fundamentalist forces there. Hyderabad Liberation Day is not just a date. It is also an inspiration for the integrity of the country, for our duties towards the nation,” he said.
Modi, who arrived in Bhubaneswar in the morning, interacted with the beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY)-Urban before he launched the Subhadra Yojana, a flagship programme of the state government for empowerment of women.
On Tuesday, 25 lakh women got the first tranche of ₹5,000 under the scheme, a top promise under the “Modi’s Guarantee for Odisha” in the BJP manifesto that helped the party form government on its own for the first time in the state in June this year.
The scheme aims at providing one crore women in the age group of 21 to 60 years with cash assistance of ₹50,000 over five years. The state government plans to spend ₹55,000 crore on the scheme.
Modi also launched a slew of projects on Tuesday laying the foundation stones and dedicating railway projects worth ₹2,800 crore and national highway projects worth ₹1,000 crore through virtual mode. He also released the first instalment of financial assistance under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAYG) to approximately 13 lakh beneficiaries across 14 states. Twenty-six lakh PMAY (Gramin and Urban) beneficiaries celebrated Griha Pravesh during this occasion.