Summary PM-elect pledged to make good governance and development cornerstones of his administration.
AHMEDABAD (AFP) - Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi pledged Friday to make the 21st century "India s century" after leading his right-wing party to a landslide election victory.
"I want to make the 21st century India s century. It will take 10 years, not very long," the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader told supporters in his home state of Gujarat.
"India is our mother. How can we watch our mother cry?" the outgoing Gujarat chief minister said on the eve of his departure for the capital New Delhi.
In a combative speech, the prime minister-elect pledged to make good governance and development cornerstones of his administration as he drew a contrast with the defeated Congress party s emphasis on welfare programmes.
"People used to believe that you couldn t run an election on the basis of development, that to win an election you had to hand out scraps to people," he said.
"Modi will be PM with the BJP winning, that s been decided, but I am thinking ahead... Those politicians who don t believe in development, who ran away from development during the election, they too will accept development as an election platform in the coming days."
