BJP confident PM Narendra Modi to return to power with a greater majority: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday that it is "our duty to provide the future generations a better India", and exuded confidence that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will return to power for a third term in the general elections due this year. Reiterating the goal set by PM Modi, to make India a developed nation by 2047, the finance minister exhorted India Inc to align itself with the target.

"We should reach the destination" by 2047, when India will complete 100 years of its Independence, said Sitharaman, speaking at an event organised by industry body FICCI. 

India has moved up to become the fifth-largest economy in the world, and is on track to become the third-largest economy, Sitharaman added. 

She assured the industry that reforms will continue in the third term of the PM Narendra Modi-led government. 

The BJP is confident that PM Modi will return to power with a greater majority, the finance minister said.

India is set to go into Lok Sabha polls in April-May.  

"What has to happen is an India, in which our generation or the generation before, which saw a time of shortages, and a time of opportunities lost, and a time when in spite of talent revving to contribute to the country, had to leave the country because the opportunities were not existing here... It's in a way our duty to provide our future generations a better country which all of us can be proud of," the finance minister said while addressing the session on 'Viksit Bharat @ 2047: Viksit Bharat and industry'. 

The minister said that the government has undertaken a host of reforms in the last 10 years, a trend that will continue.

The reforms to be undertaken by the next Modi government will touch on the factors of production, Sitharaman said. 

"The Honourable Prime Minister's clear indication is that this goal is not attained for just India to claim high ground but it is our duty to provide the future coming generations a better India, which gives opportunities to the youth to say 'everything lies here, this is my motherland'," Sitharaman added. 

With inputs from agencies