“Achchhe din”, the sledgehammer slogan on which Narendra Modi rode to power in 2014, has become a “millstone” around the NDA government’s neck, PTI quoted Union minister Nitin Gadkari as saying in Mumbai.

The minister added that the phrase was originally used by Modi’s predecessor Manmohan Singh, something Modi had also acknowledged in 2014.

“Achchhe din maanne se hota hai (Good days depend on one’s belief). It was at an NRI meet in Delhi that Manmohan Singh had said that ‘achchhe din ayenge’ (good days will come). When asked when ‘achchhe din’ will come, Singh had replied, ‘in the future’. Modiji said the same thing somewhere and it has now become the millstone around our neck (hamare gale mein latak gaya),” the news agency quoted Gadkari as saying.

This is not the first time the BJP is putting an election promise “in perspective”.

Last year, BJP president Amit Shah had described Modi’s campaign promise on black money as a “jumla”. Jumla means “a mere sentence, not to be taken literally”. 

Asked about Modi’s campaign-trail promise to bring black money back within 100 days of coming to power and distributing it among the people, Shah had said: “Modiji’s statement was an election jumla given during the Lok Sabha polls. Everybody knows this black money doesn’t go to accounts of people.”