Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday accused the Opposition of spreading lies over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), saying it is “making Hindus and Muslims fight by doing vote bank politics”.
“The people of the country now know that by doing vote bank politics and making Hindus and Muslims fight, you let the nation burn in a communal fire for over 60 years. You wore a garb of secularism, but Modi has exposed your truth,” PM Modi said at a public meeting in Uttar Pradesh’s Lalganj.
“Do whatever you want to, but you will never be able to remove CAA,” Modi said at a rally in Uttar Pradesh’s Azamgarh a day after the first set of citizenship certificates under CAA was issued to 14 people.
“The work of giving citizenship under the CAA to refugees has already started. All these people are Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists. They have been living in the country for a long time as refugees and were victims of the partition of the country done on the basis of religion,” he said.
Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla physically handed over the first set of citizenship certificates to 14 applicants on Wednesday, two months after the MHA notified the rules of CAA implementation.
The PM accused the Congress and SP of spreading lies over CAA, and push Uttar Pradesh and the entire country towards riots,” he alleged.
He added that although the people of the “INDI alliance” claim they will remove CAA, “no one can do it”, while asserting that thousands of refugees will be granted citizenship under the CAA.
“You are a fraud… you forced the country to burn in the fire of communalism,” he said, attacking the opposition without taking any name.
On Article 370, Modi said, “In the recent polling held in Kashmir, people voted and felt proud of participating in the festival of democracy. The excitement shown by people of Srinagar in polls is proof no one can bring back Article 370 and do vote bank politics.” “Earlier during the polls in Kashmir, there used to be protests, people used to fear for their lives and get threats from terrorists. But this time, previous polling records were broken in Srinagar,” he said.
He also attacked the Samajwadi Party and Congress saying that although they are two parties, all of them only sell appeasement, lies, ‘parivarvad’ and corruption.
“They have come with a triple dose of appeasement. They want to snatch the reservation granted to the SCs, STs and OBCs and give it to their vote bank. The INDI alliance wants to take half your property and give it to its vote bank. They want to divide the budget of the country and allot 15 per cent of it for the minority,” Modi said.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath, the BJP’s Lalganj Lok Sabha seat candidate Neelam Sonkar and Azamgarh candidate Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirhaua’ accompanied the PM on the stage. Polling in Lalganj and Azamgarh will be held in the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha election which is scheduled on May 25.