As voting for the first phase of Gujarat Vidhan Sabha election commenced on Saturday morning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the Congress with a “negative mindset” as he escalated attacks against the Congress stating that a Jammu and Kashmiri separatist, Salman Nizami, is currently campaigning for the Opposition party in the state.
A leading national English TV channel had carried the news about this “separatist” on Friday night.
Addressing election rallies at Lunawada in Mahisagar and Bodeli in Chhota Udepur districts, that go to polls in the second phase on December 14, Modi said that Salman Nizami, a “star campaigner” of the Congress in Gujarat, has been a supporter of “Azad Kashmir”, insulting the Indian Army jawans by dubbing them as rapists of Kashmiri women.
Salman, the PM stated, had earlier campaigned for the hanged militant Afzal Guru, saying “Ghar Ghas se Afzal niklega” (An Afzal will emerge from every house).” The separatist is now asking votes for Rahul Gandhi and the Congress, he said. “Even the Muslims of Gujarat have never spoken in such a language,” the PM said.
Modi said Nizami had even questioned him about his parents. “India is my mother and father,” the prime minister said.
The ‘neech’ angle
He accused the Congress of shamelessly spreading falsehoods, casteist poison and humiliating the Indian Prime Minister. It is due to the erstwhile Congress regime’s failures over the last 70 years of Independence that India now has four crore people, devoid of electricity and other amenities, seemingly surviving in the 18th century.
He also accused the Opposition party with viewing the Dalits, tribals and backwards as neech as was the case during the erstwhile Mughal regime. He urged the people to dump forever the Congress whose leaders viewed the Dalits, tribals and backwards in such a manner. He said that such parties should be wiped out by the people in an election.
“This smacks of their arrogance and hatred. Kick them out in this election and don’t let them enter Gujarat ever. How can a drowning Congress save the people?,” he asked.
“lollypop of reservation”
The Congress, he said, has been offering “lollypop of reservation” to the Muslims for a long time but did nothing. “We want to give the same rights to Muslim women as are available to other women. That is why we are going to table a Bill envisaging a three-year imprisonment to a Muslim men uttering three talaqs in one go.”
For the first time during the current election campaign, Modi named business houses like the Ambanis, Adanis, Tatas and Birlas, saying they do not live in filth. “It is the poor who live in unhygienic conditions and foot expensive medical bills for the diseases they contract. It was for this reason that the Government launched the Cleanliness Drive, not for the big industrialists.”
Also, the about the Congress charge that the Adanis were doled out “45,000 crore acre” of land, the PM said this number was three times the size of the Earth. By claiming this, the Congress made him (Modi) a Vaman Avatar.
“Even when the NDA passed the OBC Commission Bill in the Lok Sabha, the Congress sabotaged it in the Rajya Sabha,” he added.