PM Modi interacts with his ministers; tells them not to get rattled by opposition politics

NDA ministers will fan out across the country from January to "expose" the opposition's "stalling tactics" in Parliament due to which several key bills are stuck and highlight the government's achievements seeking to project it as "pro-poor".

At a meeting of the council of ministers at his residence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the ministers to "feel upbeat" about what the government is doing and "not get rattled" by the attack by the opposition, which he alleged was building a "campaign on falsehood".

During the meeting that lasted one-and-a-half-hours, the Prime Minister asked his Cabinet colleagues to take up the "challenge" of reaching the message about the government's functioning to people through better connect with them.

A detailed plan will be chalked out later but the ministers have been asked to start visiting constituencies from the second week of January and spend at least 30 hours in areas assigned to them.

Asking the ministers to periodically review the functioning of their departments, the Prime Minister stressed on the need to bring in innovative ideas for enhanced performance and improve the image of the government.

Modi was of the view that effort should be made to increase people's participation in preparing budget for central government schemes and there should be "no last minute rush" to spend the money at the fag end of a financial year.

It was also decided that each minister would undertake a tour of two parliamentary constituencies to apprise people of the decisions taken by the Modi government in the interest of the common man since it came to power in 2014.

Sources said the Prime Minister was keen that the achievements of the government are taken to people in the simplest possible language.

The general view at the meeting was that as the winter session is about to end on 23 December, it was time the government concentrated on "exposing" the Opposition outside Parliament.

This view came amid broad indications that the government would not be able to get the GST bill passed during the winter session with Congress stalling Parliament on National Herald case and other issues.

-PTI