PM doubles down on anti-Congress pitch, claims it will seize, redistribute wealth

Tribune News Service

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, April 22

After stoking a political storm with “the Congress will redistribute people’s wealth among infiltrators and those with more kids” remarks in Rajasthan’s Banswara, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today doubled down on the accusations even as Opposition parties urged the Election Commission to act against his “hate speech”.

If you own 2 homes, it’ll take away one

If you own an ancestral home in a village and also a flat in a city, Cong will take away one of the two... This is Maoist thinking, communist thinking. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister

Speaking in Aligarh, one of the eight Uttar Pradesh seats going to the polls in the second phase on April 26, the PM employed a two-pronged canvassing strategy as electioneering for the 18th Lok Sabha poll intensified, reissuing the “Congress will seize and redistribute people’s wealth” warning for the majority and listing the government’s pro-Muslim planks for the principal minority.

The PM attacked the “Congress prince” (read Rahul Gandhi) and the Congress manifesto for “Maoist plans to survey and redistribute people’s wealth, properties and jewels”, and said Opposition INDIA bloc members Samajwadi Party and Congress had always only used Muslims as vote banks. Modi said the Congress planned a “law to survey and redistribute people’s assets”.

“The SP and the Congress have always practised politics of appeasement but never done anything to uplift the Muslims politically, socially and financially. They have problems when I espouse the cause of Pasmanda Muslims, forced to subsist on the margins,” Modi said in veiled references to the BJP’s July 2023 move to include leading Pasmanda Muslim from UP and former V-C of Aligarh Muslim University Tariq Mansoor as the party’s national vice-president among 13.

Lamenting decades of lost dignity of Muslim women due to triple talaq, the PM said it was his government that secured the lives of the community’s women by criminalising the regressive practice.

He contrasted the BJP-led NDA dispensation’s “sabka saath, sabka vishwas” policy with the SP-Congress’ “appeasement”, listing out the NDA regime’s pro-Muslim measures — among them the expanded Haj quota and simplified visa norms for Hajis.

“Previously due to meagre Haj quotas, bribery was rampant and only the rich could afford the Haj. I urged the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia to raise India’s Haj quota. Today, not only has the quota been raised, visa norms for Hajis have also been simplified,” said the PM, also mentioning the BJP government’s decision to do away with the mandate for Muslim women to have a male companion to undertake the Haj.

As he sought to engage the Muslims, whom he did not specifically pinpoint today, principally Pasmandas, the PM continued his appeal to the larger majority, warning them against “the Congress designs to plunder their wealth”.

After Sunday’s remarks that “the Congress plans to snatch the wealth of people and give it to infiltrators and those who have more children”, the PM refrained from making a community-specific utterance today. He nevertheless hammered his Sunday point.

As Modi intensified his attack on rivals, party leaders took to the social media to flag two Congress manifesto promises to make their pro-Muslim point — the promise to remove 50 per cent reservation cap set by the SC and conduct a ‘socio economic’ census in addition to a caste census to determine affirmative action.

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#Congress #Narendra Modi #Rajasthan