Yogi Adityanath tears into Congress manifesto, advocates ‘wisdom’ in voting
Yogi Adityanath also said this could be the first election where the country seemed reassured of the election outcome.
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath ripped into the Congress on Wednesday, comparing the “dangerous aim” of its manifesto with that of the Bharatiya Janata Party and said while the BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi was focused on ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’, the Congress was talking of getting a property survey done and redistribution of wealth. Follow full coverage of the Lok Sabha elections here.
Yogi Adityanath, who also launched the party’s media centre at the UP BJP office, said he wanted to remind the electorate that “it was your life, your security, your country and your vote” and there was need to use it “wisely”, while invoking former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s 2006 speech which has now emerged as a major poll point of the BJP.
In that speech, while talking about “collective priorities”, Singh had gone on to advocate that along with plans for SC/STs, there was a need to devise innovative plans “so that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority,” were empowered to share the fruits of development equitably. He had added the line “they must have the first claim on our resources” that is now being recalled by top BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and CM Yogi Adityanath to run down the Congress for engaging in appeasement politics.
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Yogi built upon this remark of the former PM and said the Congress’s caste census pitch was just an attempt to back its “dangerous” view of redistributing resources, ushering in “Sharia law” and a “Talibani-mindset.”
“While the BJP is focused on ensuring all round development, sans discrimination, the Congress is talking of property survey and redistributing wealth. So where are they headed ?” Adityanath said while recalling Manmohan Singh’s statement.
“They are talking of survey of property of people and then they will redistribute it. So first you rob the country of its resources and ... remember how the then Prime Minister of UPA government Dr Manmohan Singh had in one of his speeches said that Muslims had the first right on country’s resources. And for this they are using caste census as the backbone,” Yogi Adityanath said.
He again picked Manmohan Singh’s two back-to-back tenures as PM between 2004 to 2014 to recall how during the period Congress-led-UPA government had tried to push in Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill.
“That move couldn’t go through due to the massive opposition from the BJP but who can forget the crass attempt to muzzle majority voice and its sentiments,” Adityanath said, his pitch on property survey and Manmohan Singh’s statement being similar to that of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Rajasthan and Aligarh rallies in which he had accused the Congress and allies of eyeing people’s “income and assets”. The PM had said that Congress leaders were saying that if voted to power, they would “probe people’s assets, take them under government control and distribute them.”
Adityanath also said this could be the first election where the country seemed reassured of the election outcome.
“That’s because in the past 10 years, PM Modi has ushered in ‘politics of performance’ and accountability, tackled internal security issues, terrorism and naxalism, ensured world class infrastructure and brought in ‘one district one medical college’ amid a long list of issues that point towards how focus on politics of performance has brought outstanding results that included helping 25 crore Indians overcome poverty. In contrast the grandson is still parroting his grandmother’s ‘garibi hatao’ slogan,” he said. The veiled reference to grandson and grandmother was for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his grandmother and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who had raised the ‘garibi hatao’ slogan.
