Modi attacks Cong over Waqf, politics of appeasement

After a historic win in Maharashtra, PM Narendra Modi launched a no-holds barred attack on the Congress saying the main opposition party has “awarded a death sentence to real secularism with appeasement politics”.

Terming giving away of prime properties to Waqf boards under the Waqf Act a prime example of Congress’ vote-bank approach, the PM said, “By sowing seeds of appeasement politics, the first family of the Congress has betrayed the Constitution-makers who had conceived the Constitution in a truly secular spirit.” The PM said in its lust for power, the Congress family was also spreading the poison of casteism.

“One family’s lust for power has reached such heights that they have consumed their own party,” Modi said addressing BJP workers at party headquarters where he described the Maharashtra and bypoll mandate a vote for good governance, stability, modern development and heritage.

Noting that urban areas like Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur had supported the BJP in Maharashtra, Modi said people wanted progress and not “divisive agendas the Congress was peddling”.

He said to attain power, the Congress’ “first family abuses north Indians when they are in the South and vice-versa, and abuses the nation when abroad”. “A flame has been ignited within the Congress where old-timers are asking whether only one family is entitled to run the party. Thousands of Congress cadres are yearning for their old party. This flame has been ignited,” he said, adding that the BJP’s mission was not to win elections but to build the nation.

Modi, while describing the BJP win in Maharashtra as unprecedented and a sign of party’s growing influence, said the Congress was a “parasitic” party that feeds on allies and destroys them.

“This is what has happened in Maharashtra,” he said, warning the nation against a “web of urban Naxals who are controlled from outside and are bent on stalling India’s progress”.

Vote for stability

The biggest message of the Maharashtra poll is — ‘Ek hain to safe hain’... This is a vote for stability and will lay the foundation for a developed India. This vote is a rejection of Congress and INDI bloc’s ecosystem, which is peddling the agenda to divide people. -- Narendra Modi, PM