Senior BJP leader and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday criticised the Congress, saying it had a history of dividing society based on religion.
The defence minister was addressing a rally in Gautambudh Nagar. Dismissing the Congress’ allegations against the PM Modi of being anti-minority, Singh said the BJP has never engaged in divisive politics.
“I have known PM Narendra Modi for a long, and he has never done politics on the basis of religion or created a rift among religions. He has always given respect to all religions,” he said.
Elections in Gautambuddh Nagar will be held on April 26.
Singh accused the Congress of redistributing the wealth in favour of one community. “I remember on December 9, 2006, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in his address at the National Defence Council meeting said that minorities especially Muslims, have first rights on resources of the country. I say everyone should have equal rights on anything,” he said.
“Under the Congress government rule institutes like Jamia Milia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University scrapped reservations for SC and STs and several commissions were formed by Congress that recommended a 27 per cent reservation for OBC that should also include a six per cent quota for Muslims and two per cent for minorities,” he said.
“Congress has always formed the government by dividing Hindu-Muslims. We (BJP) want to take the country to the new heights of development and make it one of the best countries,” he added. The defence minister also took on the Congress for claiming that the unopposed victory of its Surat candidate was against democracy.
“One of our candidates won unopposed in Surat in Gujarat. The series of victories of the Bharatiya Janata Party has begun. And the people of Congress and other political parties are saying that this is a threat to democracy. I want to say to Congress that do not do politics of lies. Under your government, many times MPs have been elected unopposed,” he said.
“If your MP wins unopposed then democracy becomes strong and if one of our MPs wins unopposed then democracy becomes weak. I like to remind you that in Uttar Pradesh in 2012, there was a by-election in Kannauj and Dimple Yadav won unopposed. At that time, the people of Congress, SP and BSP did not see any threat to democracy,” he added.
(ANI)