Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was on a visit to Uttar Pradesh ahead of the third phase of voting in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, took a swipe at the Congress on Sunday and said that the grand old party and the opposition bloc, I.N.D.I.A are using Muslims as their pawns, and the people of the community have understood it.
Addressing a rally in support of BJP candidate Rekha Verma in UP’s Dhaurahra, PM Modi claimed that the Muslim community is distancing itself from the opposition after seeing the development carried out by the BJP. The Prime Minister said that the poor and those belonging to the SC, ST, and OBC communities have also joined the saffron camp.
“Muslim brothers and sisters are seeing that (houses under) PM housing scheme were given to all the needy. Be it water connection or gas cylinder under Ujjwala Yojana, every government benefit was given to all…they (Muslims) are also getting benefits of all schemes without discrimination,” PM Modi said, as quoted by news agency PTI. “The Muslim community also realises that the Congress and INDI alliance have made them pawns,” he said. The Prime Minister also said, “that is why the Muslim community is also distancing itself from these contractors of vote bank politics”.
Continuing his attack on the opposition, the PM said that to save the Muslim vote bank, these people (the opposition) are now playing a new game and are out doing appeasement in the open. He stated that the manifesto of the opposition reflects Muslim League’s thinking.
During the election rally, PM Modi also pointed out that BR Ambedkar and even Jawaharlal Nehru had said it clearly that there would be no reservation based on religion. He further stated that the grand old party and I.N.D.I.A bloc are “adamant on giving reservation on the basis of religion,” as quoted by PTI. “They don’t realise that they are making ground to break the country once again on the basis of religion,” the Prime Minister said. He went on to claim that in Karnataka, Muslims were “made OBC” overnight and given reservation from the OBC quota.
“They (Congress) now want to do across the country what they did in Karnataka. They want to rob the reservation of SC/ST and OBC on the basis of religion,” he claimed, as quoted by PTI. “Politics of appeasement has become compulsory for the existence of ‘shehzade’ of the SP and Congress,” he said in an apparent attack on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav.
At the rally, the prime minister was accompanied by sitting Dhaurahra MP Rekha Verma, MP from Lakhimpur Ajay Mishra Teni, BJP state president Bhupendra Chaudary, and the party’s candidate from Sitapur, Rajesh Verma. In Dhaurahra, the BJP has fielded incumbent Rekha Verma. She is pitted against Anand Bhadauriya of the SP and Shyam Kishore Awasthi of the BSP. Polling in Dhaurahra is scheduled to be held on May 13 in the fourth phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
(With inputs from agencies)
