Empower Muslims, not reward them, says Modi

Govt highlights agenda on empowering the poor

The BJP on Sunday tried to recall the doctrines of ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya as Prime Minister Narendra Modi defines his government and the BJP agenda on empowering poor, secularism, clean politics and regional imbalance in the country.

Paying tribute to former Bharatiya Jan Sangha president to conclude the BJP conclave, Modi recalled Deendayal’s half-a-decade old outreach towards Muslims as a better example of secularism than that practised by some political parties.

Quoting Deendayal, he said, “Muslims shouldn’t be treated as an object of vote-bank politics or looked down upon. They should be considered equal. He has said 50 years back that don’t reward Muslims, don’t rebuke Muslims, empower them”.

The opposition has been accusing the Centre of being anti-Muslim and anti-Dalit, a perception which had emerged due to attacks on them. He insisted that the BJP-led NDA government’s motto is “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas”.

He promised that the government at the centre and at 13 BJP-ruled states were attempting to fulfill Deendayal’s dreams on integral humanism and upliftment of the poorest of the poor.

On the “garib kalyan (welfare of poor)” programmes of the government, he said the most underprivileged should be the first to progress. He went back to the ideologue again and remarked that “Deendayal Upadhyaya used to say that if equality has to be achieved among all, then the people on top have to bend down and extend their support to those who are neglected”.

The BJP came to Kozhikode, emphasised Modi earlier in his speech, to hold its conclave, the same place where its ideologue was made president of Bharatiya Jan Sangha way back in 1967, to revive “his principles with a new vigour”.

The PM’s summing up remarks at the BJP meet was in continuation with his previous day’s public address at a beach here. In his speech, Modi had placed the right wing ideologue intellectually on an exalted position enjoyed by Mahatma Gandhi and Ram Maohar Lohia. “Their thoughts get reflected in today’s politics,” he had said.  The three-day BJP national council came to an end on Sunday with the party vowing in its adopted political resolution to take “inspiration from the life and works” of Deendayal to “transform India into a glorious and developed nation” under Modi’s leadership.