New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday accused the Congress of promoting “vote jihad” — or urging Muslims to vote against the BJP — and asked people to choose between that and “Ram Rajya”.
At a rally in Madhya Pradesh Tuesday, when 93 seats around the country went to the polls in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections, Modi said that India today stood at “an important turning point in history”. “You have to decide whether ‘vote jihad’ will continue in India or ‘Ram Rajya’ will,” he told the crowd in Khargone. The PM also questioned whether a concept like “vote jihad” was acceptable in a democracy.
The phrase was introduced into the election narrative in April by Maria Alam, a Samajwadi Party leader and the niece of senior Congress leader and former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid.
Seeking votes for the INDIA bloc’s candidate in the Farrukhabad constituency, Alam had said that ‘vote jihad’ was necessary for Muslims in the current situation. In the presence of Khurshid and other senior Congress leaders, Alam said: “Together do ‘vote jihad’ — with intelligence, without being sentimental and with silence. As we can only do ‘vote jihad’ to drive away this sanghi government.” She said that it was time to join hands — otherwise, the “sanghi government would succeed in wiping out our existence”.
Both Khurshid and his niece have been booked for those comments by the Uttar Pradesh police.
‘Congress’s love for Pakistan’
The prime minister also said Tuesday that while Pakistani terrorists threatened ‘jihad’ against India, the Congress here had announced ‘vote jihad’ against Modi. “That means people of a particular religion are being asked to vote unitedly against Modi. Imagine the level the Congress has stooped to!” he said at the rally.
Modi said those who had left the Congress in recent times had many stories to say about its “intentions” and its “dangerous conspiracies”. “Listen to those who have been with the Congress for 20 to 25 years, those who are leaving. A woman (Radhika Khera) said when she went to the Ram Temple, she was tortured so much that she had to leave Congress. Another person said that ‘Congress has been captured by Muslim Leagues and Maoists’.” Khera joined the BJP on Tuesday.
He said that the “Congress shehzada” (Rahul Gandhi) wanted to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision on the Ram Temple “just like his father reversed the Supreme Court’s decision in the Shah Bano case”.
The prime minister attacked the Congress for its “love for Pakistan”, saying it reached new peaks after every phase of voting. He also criticised Congress leader and former Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, who said Sunday that the terrorist attack on an IAF convoy in Poonch Saturday was a “pre-election stunt by the BJP”.
Modi alleged there was a competition between INDIA bloc leaders to make “anti-national” statements as none “were bothered about our faith or national interest”.
“A former Congress CM (Channi) said our army carries out terrorist attacks, and Pakistan is innocent. Look at the shamelessness of another big Congress leader, who said that Pakistan had no hand in the Mumbai terror attack either (Vijay Wadettiwar). Another Congress ally leader (Farooq Abdullah) threatens India… saying that Pakistan is not wearing bangles,” Modi told the MP crowd.
“I ask the shehzada of Congress, what is the intention of your colleagues who say such things? Why so much love for Pakistan and so much hatred for our Army?” he added.
The ruling party has been attacking the Congress over comments by former Pakistan minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, who Saturday praised Rahul Gandhi over his poll promise of wealth redistribution. Hussain also shared a video earlier in which Gandhi was seen attacking the BJP government over the invitees at the Ram Mandir’s pran pratishtha ceremony held earlier in January.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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