Congress tried to snatch rights of SC/ST/OBCs: PM Modi

JAIPUR: PM Modi accused Congress on Tuesday of being “so steeped in vote-bank politics” that it wouldn’t baulk at snatching reservation from the SC and ST communities and passing it on to Muslims, “like it attempted to do through a pilot project in Andhra Pradesh in 2004 before seeking to extend it to the rest of the country”.

“Between 2004 and 2010, they tried to implement this plan in AP four times, but because of legal hurdles, and Supreme Court’s vigil, they could not implement it,” Modi said at a rally in Rajasthan’s Tonk-Sawai Madhopur on the penultimate day of campaigning for the second and final phase of polling in the state this Friday.


“In 2011, Congress tried to implement this across the country – snatch the rights of SCs, STs and OBCs as part of its politics of appeasement. Jab humey mauka mila, toh humne jo pehla kaam kiya, unhone joh SC-ST se chheen karke Muslims ka quota nikala tha, usko humne khatam kar diya (The first thing we did after being elected was to scrap reservation for minorities that Cong had snatched from SC-ST).”

Modi, who started his rally in Banswara last Sunday by linking Congress’s manifesto with former PM Manmohan Singh’s 2006 statement about minorities having first right to India’s resources, iterated that the grand old party had “hatched a conspiracy to redistribute the country’s wealth among a favoured few”.

Singh featured in the PM’s speech a second time as the latter spoke of how Congress allegedly couldn’t care less about “tinkering with Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Constitution”.

“When the Constitution was being drafted, there was considerable opposition to reservation on the basis of religion. But Manmohan Singh gave a speech— I was present there as Gujarat CM — in which he said Muslims have the first right to the country’s wealth. This wasn’t a coincidence. Congress has always had an appeasement mentality,” Modi said. Repeating his statements on Congress eyeing “streedhan” and “mangalsutra” of “mothers and sisters”, Modi referred to Rahul Gandhi’s statements likening caste census to X-Rays and said the opposition party was talking about X-raying people’s properties and redistributing them.

The PM said that by holding a mirror to Congress, he was merely trying to show the truth that the party was trying to hide.

“Do-teen din pehle maine Congress ke vote-bank ki rajneeti ka pardaphash kiya tha. Congress aur uske ecosystem ko itni mirchi lagi, itni mirchi lagi hai...ki har taraf gaaliyan dene pe toot pade hain. Jo aaye Modi ko gaali de raha hai (When I exposed Congress’s vote-bank strategy two or three days ago, it hurt the party and its ecosystem so badly that whoever gets to speak only abuses Modi).

The PM said wherever Congress was in office, it had become difficult to practice one’s faith. “Even listening to Hanuman Chalisa becomes a crime under the party’s governance,” he declared, alluding to an instance of a mobile storeowner in Bengaluru being assaulted last month for playing Hanuman Chalisa on a speaker.

Modi alleged that when Congress governed Rajasthan, those who pelted stones on Ram Navami processions were given protection and restrictions imposed on such events. He promised none of this would happen again. “Now, you will recite Hanuman Chalisa peacefully and also celebrate Ram Navami. This is BJP’s guarantee.”

The PM charged Congress with plunging places like Malpura, Karauli, Chhabra, Tonk and Jodhpur into “dange ki aag (fire of riots)” during the erstwhile Ashok Gehlot govt’s stint.

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