On the campaign trail in Madhya Pradesh, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday batted for the ‘one nation, one election’ idea and called the track record of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government “remarkable” for the country.

 Referring to the recent assembly elections in MP, in which the BJP registered a huge victory, Singh said the people of the state will cast their ballot again in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

 The 29 Lok Sabha seats in MP will go to polls in four phases between April 19 and May 13 and votes will be counted on June 4.

 “Four months back only the people of Madhya Pradesh overwhelmingly voted in the assembly polls in favour of the BJP. While addressing rallies in Singrauli and Sidhi recently I have expressed a concern over that.

“Now after four months, they will vote again. I have also said that the country should have a ‘one nation, one election’ system. It should happen in one go,” said Singh, addressing a public meeting in Rewa Lok Sabha seat from where the BJP has fielded sitting MP Janardhan Mishra for the third time in a row.

After ‘one nation, one election’, local body polls should take place in the country. “But it should be held at the most in two batches,” Singh said.

 Calling the track record of the Modi government at the Centre “remarkable”, Singh said it annulled triple talaq, pulled 25 crore people out of poverty, provided LPG cylinders to women under Ujjwala Yojana and took the country’s economy from 11th place to 5th place in the world.

 By 2026, the Defence minister said, India’s economy will be at the third place in the world and by 2047, the country will become a developed nation. While approaching 2070, it will become the biggest power in the world, he claimed.

 Singh said that during Modi’s tenure, the nation’s standing in the world has increased. The Russia-Ukraine war was stopped for four-and-a-half hours on the intervention of PM Modi for the safe exit of Indian students pursuing medical and engineering courses there, he said.

 He also cited India’s diplomatic victory linked with Qatar, saying eight former Indian Navy officers who were awarded capital punishment by a court there were set free after Modi requested that country’s leadership.

 Singh said that India has become a major force in the world in the past 10 years under Modi’s leadership and added that from the military point of view too, the country is not only manufacturing weapons including fighter planes but also exporting them to other countries.

 In the 2019 general elections, the BJP had won 28 of the 29 Lok Sabha seats in the state, with former chief minister Kamal Nath’s son Nakul Nath emerging as the lone victorious Congress candidate.