New Delhi: Narendra Modi on Tuesday continued to respond to the opposition’s charge of the BJP asking for “400 seats to finish reservations for backwards, tribals and Dalits” by training his guns on the country’s Muslims. While campaigning in Dhar in Madhya Pradesh, Modi said: “The Congress’s intention is to give priority to minorities in sports as well. This means it will now decide who will be in and out of the cricket team on the basis of religion.”
He added: “I ask the Congress today, if this was what they have wanted, why did it divide mother India into three pieces when it became independent in 1947? … They should have made the entire country into Pakistan in 1947 and erased all traces of India then and there.
“I am saying this flatly today, and all the Congress people and those like them must listen carefully … As long as Modi is alive, he will not allow any attempt to erase India’s identity in the name of false secularism or pseudo-secularism.”
He continued to focus on the singular anti-Muslim theme as he has ever since his campaign in Banswada in Rajasthan, steering clear from defending or mentioning his regime’s ten-year record in government.
He went on to say that the Congress intends to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision on the Ram Mandir.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
In a new twist to why ‘400 seats’ were necessary, Modi said in Dhar that he needs ‘400 seats’ so the Congress does not succeed in its purported plan to put the “Babri lock” on the temple in Ayodhya or bring back Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.
Incidentally, it was in Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure as prime minister and a Congress state government in UP that the locks of the Babri Masjid were opened in Ayodhya in 1985.
The Congress’s spokespersons defended the party on this. Pawan Khera said that “the distraught prime minister today said the Supreme Court’s verdict on [the] Ram mandir will be overturned if the Congress forms the government.
“They forgot that only the Congress party remained firm on its stand from the beginning till the end of this dispute that if this dispute could not be resolved through mutual reconciliation, then the decision of the court would be final. Whereas the BJP kept changing its stand every [three to four] years.”
After the first phase, Modi had said he needed to cross ‘400 seats’ so the Congress cannot steal the reservation of Dalits, tribals and OBCs.
In Khargone and Dhar, Modi went to great lengths to counter the opposition’s charge that allegations that the slogan “400 paar” (Hindi for ‘beyond 400’) was aimed at abolishing the constitution.
Saying that the Congress and INDIA bloc parties were spreading lies that Modi would change the constitution if he gets 400 seats, Modi added: “They should know that from 2019 to 2024 … Modi already had the support of 400 seats in the form of the NDA and the NDA-plus alliance.”
He went on to say that Modi needs 400 seats so the Congress cannot put the ‘Babri lock’ on the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya and revive Article 370.
In Khargone, he said: “India is at a crucial turning point in history. You have to decide whether there will be ‘vote jihad’ or ‘Ram rajya’ in India.”
“Terrorists in Pakistan are threatening jihad against India, and Congress people here have announced that people must do ‘vote jihad’ against Modi. That is, people of a special religion have been asked to unite and vote against Modi,” he said.
“Think about it, what level has the Congress come down to? Where have frustration and disappointment thrown the Congress to? … You tell me, is vote jihad acceptable to you? Can this happen in a democracy? Does the Indian constitution allow such a jihad?”
The Constitution of India provides for universal adult franchise, and each of its adult citizens, irrespective of their faith, caste, region, creed, economic status, beliefs or gender, is entitled to cast a vote in favour of any candidate of their choice or to press NOTA (none of the above).
Modi also obliquely referred to RJD leader and former chief minister of Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, and cited him as saying that Muslims must not only have reservations but must get all the reservations.
He tried to use Lalu’s words as incitement by saying: “What does this mean? It means these people want to steal all the reservations SCs, STs and OBCs have had and give all of it to Muslims.
“But why are these people doing this? Because they are surviving only on this vote bank, they have lost everything else, everyone has left them running, one by one.”
The PM’s ally in Andhra Pradesh, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP)’s Chandrababu Naidu has promised 4% reservation to Muslims should the BJP-TDP-Jana Sena alliance come to power.
But Modi did not refer to Naidu in this speech in Madhya Pradesh.
