VARANASI: Sidestepping the growing clamour for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya and BJP's bid to give a hard push to the party's Hindutva agenda by renaming Allahabad and

, PM

on Monday said here that politics in future would be driven only by development and growth.

" Desh sirf vikas ki rajneeti chhahta hai (the country wants only politics of development)," Modi said after inaugurating infrastructure projects worth Rs 2,413 crore in his

constituency Varanasi, including an inland multi-modal terminal, a sewage treatment plant, the ring road, and a national highway (NH 56).

Modi's skirted the temple issue and harped on 'vikas' only, even as RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was camping in Varanasi and holding meetings with Sangh functionaries to give a thrust to RSS programmes ahead of the Lok Sabha elections due next year.

Bhagwat had given a renewed thrust to the temple pitch last month by advising the NDA government to frame a law to pave way for construction of the Ram temple. "Timely completion of projects is always worthy which was not the case during previous regimes," Modi said. "Today I am happy that what was dreamt about is reaping rich dividends. A new face of Kashi is emerging," he said.

The PM said the newly-inaugurated port would not only help Varanasi get connected with Bay of Bengal but boost transportation and business activities. "It is an example of 'New India'. Be it farm produce or small scale industries, everything will be benefited," he said. A container vessel from Kolkata arrived as Modi flagged off containers carrying fertilisers to Kolkata.

Modi slammed the previous governments of wasting crores in the name of cleaning Ganga. "Our government is not flowing money into Ganga but is cleaning the filth that got accumulated over the years," he said after inaugurating a sewage treatment plant of 140 million litres per day capacity. He claimed that he fast-tracked the ring road and the national highway projects after assuming office within six month of assuming office in 2014.