Jaipur: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday tore into Congress, accusing the Grand Old party of trying to keep its Muslim vote bank intact by reducing the SC/ST reservations in Andhra Pradesh and simply “not caring” about the Constitution.
Speaking at an election rally in Tonk Sawai Madhopur, PM Modi said, “Sachaai yeh hain ki Congress aur INDI alliance jab satta meh tha, toh yeh log Dalit our pichhdo ke aarakshan mein sendhmaari karke, vote bank politics ke liye, unki khaas jamaat ko alagh se aarakshan dena chahate the. Jab ki sambividhaan iske bikul khillaaf hain.” (The truth is when Congress and INDI alliance were in power, then they tried to provide a special category reservation to their special vote bank by breaking into the reservation of Dalits and backward classes. Whereas the Constitution is totally against this)
He further said that Congress’s ideology is that of appeasement of minorities and it always indulges in vote bank politics.
"In 2004, when Congress formed the government at the Centre, one of the first things they did was to include Muslims in SC/ST quota in Andhra Pradesh. This was a pilot project that the Congress government wanted to implement in the entire country. And between 2004 and 2010, they tried to implement Muslim reservation four times but could not ultimately, because of legal hurdles and Supreme Court’s awareness," PM Modi said.
"In 2011, Congress tried to implement this across the country and give the reservation of SC/ST and OBC to others for vote bank politics. Congress tried these despite knowing this was against the Constitution but they didn’t care about the Constitution or Babasaheb Ambedkar," he added.
PM Modi also talked about many situations which could have taken place if Congress ruled the country after 2014
"Jammu and Kashmir would not have seen revocation of Article 370, or our soldiers would have been attacked from across the border and beheaded and Congress would not have done anything, and the ‘One Rank, one pension' rule would not have been implemented, serial blasts would have occurred frequently and people would have been killed, and there would not have been any free rations or free vaccines during Covid1-9 and inflation would have been at an all time high," PM Modi said while campaigning for Tonk-Sawai Madhopur BJP candidate Sukhbir Singh Jaunpuriya, who is a two time MP.
As the second phase of polling nears, PM Modi has increased its attack on Congress party for its alleged soft corner towards Muslims.
On Sunday, PM Modi criticised Congress manifesto in Banswara district, saying Manmohan Singh advocated ‘first right’ to resources for Muslims and that Congress will gather all the wealth and distribute amongst those who have more children and amongst infiltrators."
He has received a backlash over it with the opposition asking the Election Commission to take note. CPI(M)’s Brinda Karat has filed a police complaint against Prime Minister Modi for his remarks suggesting that if Congress came back to power, it will redistribute people’s wealth, prioritising Muslims.
Karat said PM’s speech violated Indian laws against inciting communal violence and hate speech.
Meanwhile, in Tonk-Sawai Madhopur LS seat, BJP candidate Sukhbir Singh Jaunpuriya, a real-estate developer, is up against Congress’s Harish Meena, a former IPS officer.
In 2019, Jaunpuriya won with 6,44,319 votes defeating Congress’s Name Narayan Meena. In 2014, he defeated cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin by 1,35,311 votes.
Tonk-Sawai Madhopur has a sizeable Muslim population, about 12.5 per cent of the population of the constituency.