PM Modi challenges Congress to appoint Muslim president, give 50% tickets to Muslims
Prime Minister Narendra Modi challenged the Congress to demonstrate its sympathy for Muslims by appointing a Muslim president and allocating 50% of election tickets to Muslims. He accused the party of appeasement, citing the 2013 Waqf law amendments as evidence.
On Saturday in Haryana, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that if the Congress party truly cares about Muslims, it should appoint a Muslim as its president and allocate 50 percent of its election tickets to the Muslim community. He also accused the opposition party of following a policy of appeasement.
During a public meeting after inaugurating the new terminal building at Maharaja Agrasen Airport in Hisar, Haryana, and initiating a commercial flight to Ayodhya, Modi criticized the Congress for the amendments made to the Waqf Act in 2013.
PM Modi inaugurated the construction of the third unit of the 800 MW Deenbandhu Chhotu Ram Thermal Power Plant in Yamunanagar. The Prime Minister also mentioned that Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar had asserted that reservations should not be based on religion and that the Constitution also forbids it. However, the Congress-led government in Karnataka disregarded this by taking away the rights of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes, and instead, provided reservations in tenders based on religion.
He claimed that the Congress followed a policy of appeasement, which pleased only a few hardliners among the Muslims, while the majority of the community remained overlooked, uneducated, and impoverished.
Prime Minister Modi stated that the clearest evidence of the Congress party's policy is the changes made to the Waqf Act just before the 2014 general elections. He mentioned that there had been a Waqf law in place from independence until 2013. However, to secure votes and engage in appeasement and vote-bank politics, the Congress quickly amended the Waqf Act in late 2013.