Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi Tuesday termed Narendra Modi’s 12 years of rule as prime minister “the age of absolute transformation” and said the state witnessed fast-paced development under the BJP’s rule in the past two years.
Modi will create a new record Wednesday, as the democratically elected head of government for the longest period (4,399 days), he said.
Addressing a press conference alongside Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal here, the chief minister said, “Today marks 12 years of the Union government’s journey of providing continuous, clean services, good governance and comprehensive welfare of the poor.”
“I express my deep gratitude and heartfelt greetings to the prime minister on behalf of the 4.5 crore people of Odisha and wish him a long, peaceful life,” he said.
He also said that June 9 “is a golden, epoch-making and unprecedented day in the democratic history of our country. It was on this day in 2024 that the world’s most popular public figure, Narendra Modi, had taken oath as prime minister for the third consecutive term”.
Focusing on Odisha, Majhi said that after the formation of the BJP government in the state, development works were being carried out at a fast pace under the guidance of the prime minister.
“Earlier, central schemes were not implemented properly due to a lack of coordination between the Centre and the state. But now, the benefits of each scheme are reaching the people of Odisha directly,” he said.
“In the past two years, the world has faced many geopolitical challenges. But due to Modi’s determined leadership, India’s chariot of development has not stopped.
“During the Covid pandemic, when the global economy was collapsing, India created a world record by developing an indigenous vaccine and administering more than 200 crore doses of free vaccine by July 2022,” he said.
Apart from this, India extended a helping hand to many poor countries of the world through the ‘Vaccine Maitri’ campaign.
“Despite the Ukraine-Russia war and the crisis in West Asia, India is the world’s fastest-growing major economy with a growth rate of 7 per cent to 9 per cent, the chief minister pointed out.
“There was a time when India was considered among the ‘Fragile Five’; today, due to Modiji’s vision, India has achieved a growth rate of 7.7 per cent in the financial year 2025-26 despite instability in the global supply chain. The country’s strong infrastructure, manufacturing, advanced service sector and robust digital ecosystem are shining proof of this,” he said.
About the Centre’s stand against terrorism, Majhi said, “Due to the Modi government’s strong anti-terror stand, any enemy country thinks 10 times before taking any bold action against India. Operation Sindoor is the biggest example of this,” Majhi said.
The chief minister also said that India is becoming self-reliant in both energy and technology.
“The target was for 2030, but we achieved it five years beforehand,” he noted, adding that more than 50 per cent of the country’s total electricity generation capacity now comes from renewable energy like solar and wind power.
About claims of a fuel crisis amid the Iran-US conflict, Majhi said India earlier relied on 27 countries for petroleum imports, but now the risk is reduced as it imports petrol and diesel from 40 countries.
As per the recent agreement with the UAE, 30 million barrels of crude oil will be stored in India’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a large part of which will be stored in Odisha’s Chandikhol in Jajpur district.
India’s agreement with ASML (Netherlands), a world-renowned semiconductor chip machine manufacturing company, is a big success in the sector, he said.
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