Narendra Modi today said that, if voted to power, he would give priority to preventing corruption in future before addressing the old cases and would be ready to face investigation if charges are levelled against him “professionally”.
He also talked about dealing with criminalisation of politics, saying his government would ask the Supreme Court to create a mechanism to fast-track pending cases against lawmakers.
During an interview to CNBC Awaaz, the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate insisted that he would not make any special appeal to any community for votes as he believes in oneness of all the 1.25 crore people of the country and would not mind defeat at the hustings in the process.
Describing corruption as a “disease”, Modi said he would put in place a mechanism by which corruption could be prevented.
“My priority will be develop a system by which the scope of corruption is minimised. We have to decide either I should concentrate my efforts on preventing new corruption or to clean up the old mess. My conscience says that my focus should to be ensure that new mess (of corruption) is not created,” he said.
“We have to decide whether I should focus my energy on preventing new corruption or waste time on cleaning up old mess,” he added.
“If I create such a mechanism which has technology and transparency and all the preventive measures, we will address jointly the issue of corruption. That should not be political, otherwise the cause will be defeated and this disease will continue to increase,” he said.
In case charges of corruption are levelled against him in the capacity of Prime Minister, Modi said, “Professionally if there are any allegations against me, those cases should get stuck but should continue. Modi should stop them.