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In an exclusive freewheeling interview with CNN-News18 in her Lok Sabha constituency Amethi on December 25, union minister Smriti Irani speaks about the transformation the area has undergone since she became the MP, launches a scathing attack on the Gandhi family for its “vote bank politics” and “being missing in action”, touches upon the development work done by the Narendra Modi government at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh in concert with the Yogi Adityanath-led state government including the Kashi corridor, discusses issues of Hindu vs Hindutva, law and order, democracy, nationalism and woke culture, and also reveals what inspired her to write the book ‘Lal Salaam’. Edited excerpts:
How has Amethi progressed?
We came to this constituency, and when I say we, it’s the people who wanted change, which is the people and citizens of Amethi. And I connected 7 years ago on issues of development, and today that you are here on Good Governance Day, there is much that we can speak on those issues. When I had first come here, the collector’s office was not available, we had the absence of the chief medical officer’s office, the chief education officer’s office did not exist. We had basic facilities not available in the proclaimed hospital, we did not have a trauma centre, we did not have a referral hospital for women and children, we did not have a proper fire station, we did not have bypass that was spoken of for three decades, we did not have a medical college that had been promised for four decades. So all that today exists in Amethi.
It was 7.15 when we started from Gomti Nagar in Lucknow, 9.15 am is when we touched down at the guesthouse in Amethi. So that is also a transformation in terms of connectivity…
A subject that was earlier touched upon…an effort was made to establish a connection by the former MP. The fact that you have to make an effort in an area that you have had dominance politically for five decades speaks volumes about how disconnected you are. The fact that you had to pool in people from Chhattisgarh, MP and other parts of UP only so that you could see 1,000 or 2,000 people gathering in Amethi speaks volumes about your own political connection with the people here. When you say that you are emotionally connected to Amethi, would that mean you would keep the place bereft of development? Why not build a medical college? In fact, it’s interesting… they took land in the name of their foundation, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, and the promise made four decades ago on that land was ‘we will make a medical college’. It was not made. It’s government land…so that let people still hold on to the belief that we will make it. But they didn’t build. And I am grateful to the Honourable PM, one of the medical colleges pronounced for the country was given to Amethi which shows…I have been MP only for two years and the fact that if I make an effort with my government and seek help for my constituency, that help will be given. The question is why did the Gandhis never make that effort for Amethi? Why is it that they wanted to make sure that the people here stay impoverished, are always in want of development? I guess that is what they thought is their vote bank politics.
Both of them are back here…
The fact is two of them to come here for 2.5 hours speaks volumes…The fact that they have to up the ante, that one is not enough. They needed two of them…But that too…it was a programme for two days, which was squeezed in for two and a half hours…What does that say about the two of them? There is just one me. There are two of them and then there is party support for the siblings like I said from Chhattisgarh, MP and everyone they could gather…for just one 2.5 hours gathering here.
Two years as an MP, you have been visiting during Covid times also…
Yes, and there is an MP next door from the Gandhi family, who has not been available. Who is absent. So if there is ever a reminder the people of this area needed as to what kind of an MP a Gandhi makes, is the one next door who’s absent…And this whole campaign, ‘Ladki hu lad sakti hu’…Why did she come along with her brother? Can’t she fight alone? I don’t think that politics can be fair to the people and their desire for development if you just say I will serve a segment of society that too for my political benefits. If it is about ‘ladki’, why is it that Amethi needed so many toilets that were not built? Over 3 lakh toilets built, we are grateful. In fact, we are in a celebrated position today that in the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awas Yojana, Amethi is now number 1 in the country. But what it signifies is that so many people in rural Amethi never had a home. So what kind of a ladki or ladka is it who never made toilets for the people that they called their own, never made homes for people they called their own, never got them a medical college, never got them a hospital? The first CT scan machine was got by me here. What kind of family relations do they espouse. The first central school was made by the Modi government. The first Sainik school was made by the Modi government. Amethi bypass…Nitin Gadkari comes to Amethi after 7 years and the one promise he made 7 years ago and people thronged to him 7 years ago in 2014 and they said, ‘Sahab, we have been hearing for 30 years that we will get a bypass; please make one.’ And he said, ‘Modi is coming to power and I will make sure that it is made.’ And it is made.
It is made and you have also laid the foundation stone for another national highway that will connect Jagdishpur to Raebareli, that’s also happening, so that’s another aspect…
Can you imagine keeping your own constituency disconnected by infrastructure? This is not the only constituency their family had…both these constituencies, they could not build a road or a highway linking the two. What love are they talking about? The only love that they have actually enjoyed is the love for power and their only structure towards approaching that power dynamics was to make sure that the people in these two constituencies, especially in Amethi, never got what they actually truly deserved in terms of development.
A leader recently said that you won’t get votes by building roads. Mayawati also made roads…
That’s why you are not building roads, you were doing vote bank politics. We do development and they do vote bank politics. They felt that building roads and toilets won’t get you votes, so they did not. Toilets were not part of our manifesto but it was essential. Women required it. In our country, no woman went to any leader and said that we need toilets. They felt ashamed thinking how will we go and ask…one leader, and a male leader, said that this is a woman’s first right. The day begins with difficulties…our manifesto did not have building toilets but we realised that people did not give us votes to maintain status quo. They gave votes for these small, small requirements… no fertiliser racks came to Amethi in the last 70 years…When I came here for the first time, I remember, after the 2014 elections. The-then MoS Agriculture Sanjeev Balyan came and he asked the people what do they need. ‘Just give us a rack of fertilisers’. It was never given. The first soil testing lab was built by Modi ji…They are stuck with ladki and ladka.
But emotions are what works. Will the people actually remember all this work because you have a challenge in the poll season? UP is going to polls, you are going back there…
Why would it be a challenge? The amount of work we have done on vikas…the fact that you have somebody from the opposition saying that making roads won’t fetch you votes…so that is why you didn’t make roads because you needed votes. You did not want to develop society or the country…
I had gone to Kashi…one of the former Congress secretaries of UP had said…there is a lot happening for show….it is not actually helping the people…
Please ask the devotees of Baba…Congress party sees it as a chance to get votes. Maybe this is why their Yuvraj disrespects a Ganga dip. Hindus can never disrespect a dip in the Ganga, whether in Kumbh or alone. If they are seeing it as a vote issue, you can understand that they don’t understand the meaning of Hindu.
But the accusation is that the Kashi corridor is done for votes…
Honestly, is Modiji facing any challenge as an MP in Kashi? And we have not just made a corridor but bridges, roads, water and toilet facilities, etc …Just because Modi ji created the Kashi corridor, the Congress is not liking it. All the devotees of Baba are happy…The experience I have in politics, Modiji has no challenges as an MP…I don’t have any challenges as MP…Amethi’s sister doesn’t have any challenges but the ‘election sister’ can have challenges…I have seen Atal ji as a father figure and he had only one vision. I had talked to him when I was 26-27…Even if we get one chance to work for the villagers, it will be a blessing. I come from a mindset of this party, who will win or lose in the elections, is just a ranbhoomi (battlefield), but when you talk about development…I am happy when a poor person says he went to AIIMS…he couldn’t even walk, he was having physiotherapy, now he can walk, I am happy. This is my achievement in life. There were no elections in two years. The Pipri dam that we made when I went in 2014 to Pipri, the people said that ‘Didi we won’t vote for you’. I said, it’s okay, don’t vote, but I will make the dam. Why? Because they had lost faith in politics. No politician had ever made a dam. Till SP was there, they did not make that dam. When Yogiji came to power, I told him, and soon the dam was made. I am happy that where there was no faith in politics, we made sure that people have faith in politics.
When we talk about Yogiji or UP, law and order is talked about. The former MP of his place said that the word lynching came after 2014. Hathras and Lakhimpur are also talked about. What would you say to that?
When Yogiji came to power and said that to protect girls and women, we will set up an anti-Romeo squad, he was mocked. And now more than 10,000 arrests have been made because of them. The investigations are fairer, an unbiased process of law takes place and that has been the hallmark of this government.
But these 10,000 Romeos don’t get highlighted. What gets highlighted is Ajay Mishra Teni, what happened in Lakhimpur…
It won’t get highlighted…In a law and order situation, the law will be applied without prejudice, that investigations will be fair, that you will have the entire process judicially also unravel itself is duly assisted by the state, that has been a hallmark of this government. That the issue is what is it whether it gets highlighted or doesn’t get highlighted. Can you imagine? The siblings have never been admonished for the state in which they left Amethi. Which news agency or media persons or editors actually took them to task? Why did you lie to the people of Amethi? Nobody. And am I unfair in that proclamation? I am not. If every politician is to be judged by their inputs with regards to the development of their constituency, why is it that Mr Gandhi has been given a clean chit for 15 years of disappearance from this constituency…The issue is that you are supposed to take tough questions. If you are so weak, then you have no place in politics. Have you been more kind to me? No. You have your own set of questions. You come to me. Not only you. Many editors. If you don’t have that strength then don’t be in politics…Do you have the blessings of God in politics? Are you a superhero that no one can tell you anything? Will no one tell you that you are telling a lie… Is this what RaGa is saying? If you don’t have the strength to stand in front of a journalist, he is not Yuvraj.
But his point of view is that the questions are asked only of the opposition; the government is not asked questions…
I am the MP of Amethi and a cabinet minister. I am here. I am not asking that write the questions and give beforehand like how it happens in the Gandhi family…or not like I will give interviews to only friends…Your job is to ask questions, my job is to work as an MP and union minister. Both are doing our work…Till now there was no Krishi Vigyan Centre, Modiji opened that too. We cannot deny the facts. If we say to the Gandhi family that we brought medical colleges, etc, to Amethi, for 18 to 19 months free ration was given to the people, this is all the truth. The vaccine is also free. They left us with questions and we have answered them.
Will come to your book also, but this Hindutva vs Hindu issue…’We are Hindus and what they are doing is political Hindutva’, three-four leaders have said this. Do you agree?
This is childish.
But there is a clear narrative that has been set…
BJP and RSS espouse nationalism. And I can say that as a swayamsevak and a BJP worker…But they won’t understand it because they have to get support for the slogans that call for India’s division.
There are two alternative ideologies. This is a battle of ideologies…
Which is what? First, tell me what ideology they have? Apart from the family, what do they believe in?
They say they believe in democracy, they believe in the constitution…
Which democracy? That doesn’t build toilets and homes for the poor? Which democracy? Where an MP goes missing? Which democracy? Where you take away lands in the name of your foundation…The MP of Raebareli has been missing. We had the national committee on the celebration of 75 years of India’s independence. The Congress…how many of them have partaken in those celebrations across the country? Because it is the country’s freedom, no? This is not a celebration of the BJP’s freedom…You have animosity against Modi. Why are you showing it against the country?
But somewhere in the opposition agenda, there is also a Left vs Right.
Is there any Left of the Left left?
But the Left believes that the Right is intolerant…the Right is blocking democracy…
What is intolerance? Intolerance in Kerala when I see in the hacking of a swayamsevak’s hands, killing them brutally with swords in front of family members, burning them dead, that is their democratic means of engagement? You hang my party workers alive at the gates of villages in Bengal, is this their democracy? You rape my female party workers, your leaders say that if you want to return to your village then send your women to my place at night. Is this democracy? Is this the opposition’s tolerance? Nobody says anything.
Coming to your book Lal Salaam. The story of this Captain and the way you have written, and you have said that you wanted to write this for a while, it’s been in your mind. Where did this idea germinate?
Ten years ago during a television debate, somebody said that if someone loses one’s life in uniform, then they must remain prepared for it. It just enraged me. That you are so thankless that you can speak like this against a soldier of the army or paramilitary force. My challenge was that I cannot write nonfiction while holding a constitutional position. So I have written a fictionalised version of a story that came into my mind 10 years ago. Lal Salaam is about converting that story into the form of a book.
But it is also a salute to the CRPF personnel who were killed.
Yes, paramilitary forces, who are unsung for their contribution on many occasions. For me, I have an immense amount of gratitude for every serviceman and woman. If they are living, they have given a lifetime of service. If they have lost their lives, they have done so for us.
But somewhere do you feel that this struggle with the system, what you have talked about in your book, and also this thought process of ideology that anybody who serves the state needs to be hacked, anybody who talks for the state needs to be cancelled, that’s now translated from the ground to other platforms…
I think what is extremely dangerous is the lessening of conversation around it. That I see a surge of woke culture that you’re talking about, I see a surge in those conversations without keeping at the centre of such conversations certain realities and especially the Indian constitution. This mindset that the woke culture develops, that the constitution in this country is not supreme, and I am hopeful that many well-meaning people irrespective of ideologies can create those spaces in those conversations…Because the beauty of a democracy is debate and deliberation. That is its real source of strength. So for me, it doesn’t matter whether you are woke or not woke enough. What matters is whether you’re open enough to assimilate other points of view. And reach your own conclusion. But have those engagements and deliberations with a modicum of dignity. With a desire to listen and engage productively. As long as you do that, it is a free country.
One of Goebbels’ art of propaganda was that you accuse the other side of what you are guilty. So let me ask you this, who is doing it today?
I am not somebody who would manifest the Nazi regime prototype that you’re talking about and then reflect on it. For me, the remains of the Holocaust are such that the entire regime needs to be spoken from the tragedies of the Holocaust and not those who perpetuated it. But, as I said, I go back, in a democracy…you can have conversation with people irrespective of who they vote for, what their ideology is. The true spirit of the engagement is to ensure, irrespective of your ideology, as long as you speak as one about your country, do not demean your nation, for me, it doesn’t matter. I have said this on many occasions, I don’t mind an open conversation on Amethi, on any issue of development. It was not my mistake that my rival was Mr Gandhi in Amethi. Normally, discussions happen between rivals. He doesn’t have time, that is another matter. But I think that there is a need for more and more platforms to engage on, where people can speak their mind, can do so with respect, let’s discuss issues of developments. I have said this with due reflection on what the Prime Minister has pronounced, that we have lived a 75-year journey foundationally on the basis of rights. It is time for us to recognise our rights and responsibilities towards our nation-state. So on this cheerful day of Christmas and Good Governance Day, I think that’s all I can hope for.
And there is a Parsi connection…do you know that the three wise men were actually Zoroastrians?
The only Parsi connection that I have right now living and breathing is somewhere buzzing on the phone saying that you need to tell us what you want to give to the larger family that gathers tonight for dinner.
Thank you, and we will be tracking and seeing what’s the work done and we will ask the people if there is any change or not…
I have built the roads, I’ve built the schools, I’ve built the infrastructure. When I say I built it, I become a medium of it between the government at the Centre and at the state. That the district administration is fully focused on the issue of development is something for which they have my gratitude. As an MP, that was my job, to bring those core projects to the constituency which is a job that I fulfilled. My last promise was that I will make a home for myself, which I have started. So all promises are actually fulfilled in just two years, what I had promised to fulfil in five. My agenda was that this constituency and its people had never had a promise kept. I wanted to change that. And I have.
Are you going to stay here and come back to these people in 2024?
That is my party’s decision. My home has nothing to do with my politics. But I told my party workers that it is the greatest privilege to be a BJP candidate, but this is not a dynasty. This is a disciplined force, where the BJP parliamentary party and the leadership decide who gets to be the candidate. But I can assure you one thing that in 2024, it is the BJP that is going to win Amethi again, no matter who the candidate is.
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