New Delhi: On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid out his plan for a third term of his government, promising that India would develop to become the world's third-largest economy.
Next May, the Modi government will have been in power for a decade, and Modi himself is running for reelection on a platform of continued development.
After revealing a state-of-the-art conference centre in the heart of the nation's capital, he stated, "We have to achieve the target of making India a developed nation in the next 25 years."
He based this assertion on a research by the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, which predicted that 13.5 crore people in India will be rescued from poverty.
The Prime Minister reeled off figures of development during his nine-year term, including the number of airports, the electrification of railway lines, and the extension of city gas, and claimed that India was the world's tenth largest economy when the BJP administration assumed power in 2014.
After falling behind the United States, China, Germany, and Japan, it is now rated fifth in the world.
"We will make India a developed nation working on the principle of nation first, citizen first," he declared during the opening of the renamed Bharat Mandapam International Exhibition and Convention Centre (IECC) complex.
According to Modi, the Indian economy was tenth in the world when his government entered office in 2014, but it is now fifth.
He predicted that by the end of his third term, India's economy would be among the top three in the world.
The next national election is scheduled for May of 2024.
According to him, the G20 summit that India will host in September while holding the presidency will help boost the conference tourism industry thanks to Bharat Mandapam.
"The world will see India's rising stature when the G20 summit is held in the newly built Bharat Mandapam," Modi remarked.
He condemned pessimists for their obstruction of progress and specifically the convention centre.
He said, "Just as some people privately recognise the grandeur of Kartvya Path, so too will a 'toli' of pessimists recognise Bharat Mandapam."
In terms of meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE), the IECC complex dominates the market in India. The complex is among the best exhibition and convention centres in the world in terms of the amount of covered space accessible for events.
It features a wide variety of up-to-date venues, such as convention centres, exposition halls, and amphitheatres.
Earlier in the day, Modi spoke with the workers involved in the redevelopment of the facility, felicitated them, and conducted a "pooja" at the site.—Inputs from Agencies