No communal riots in BJP-ruled states, Shah

Reaching out to the minorities ahead of Lok Sabha polls, BJP president Amit Shah on Thursday cited “no communal riots” in BJP regimes and a slew of measures for their welfare taken by the Modi government as he hit out at the Opposition for creating “misgivings” about the saffron party.

He also expressed confidence about his party's thumping victory in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls with “a guarantee” that the Opposition will be wiped out “by the afternoon of May 26 when the counting (of votes) takes place.”

The Election Commission is yet to announce the schedule of the Lok Sabha polls. The new Lok Sabha is to be constituted before June 3. Narendra Modi had taken oath as the prime minister on May 26 in 2014.

Shah was addressing a two-day National Minority Sammelan, organised here by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to work out programmes to reach out to Muslims and other minority communities with an eye on votes ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

“I say this with pride that there have been no communal riots in any of the 16 BJP-ruled states. As the rule of the Congress, SP and BSP ended (in states) one after another, the communal rights also ended,” Shah said while addressing the party's minority cell workers who came here to attend the event from across the country.

He asked them to go to the grass-root level and clear all “misgivings” about the BJP, lining up a series of programmes to convince the minorities, which have so far kept a distance from the saffron party, with the BJP's “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas” approach.

He accused the Congress of pursuing “only a divisive politics for votes” for the past 70 years, claiming that Muslims and other minority community members benefitted more during the Modi regime than in the past.

“When we came to power under the leadership of Modi Ji, welfare programmes were made to benefit people belonging to all sections of the society. Minorities are also among those who were benefitted by these programmes,” he said.

Drawing a comparison, he said a total of 3.81 crore minority students were benefitted by scholarships during the BJP rule while just 2.22 crore scholarships were granted in 50 years.

“BJP gave skill development opportunity to 6 lakh youth belonging to minority communities in the four-and-a-half year while only 20,000 minority youth were given such opportunity during Congress regime,” he said

Shah asked the minority cell workers to take the Modi government's push for the abolition of triple talaq and other welfare measures to the people belonging to the minority communities to garner their support in the upcoming elections.

He also indicated that his party was open to “feedback” from them ahead of the elections.