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Modi's 'Muslim budget' allegation outrageous…hallucination: Congress reacts
P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh dismissed Modi's allegation that the Manmohan Singh govt was planning for a Muslim budget in 2013.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the Congress would bring a separate Muslim budget as they wanted this before as well and as the chief minister of Gujarat Modi then opposed it. Congress called the allegation outrageous and hallucinatory. P Chidambaram said Modi's claim that Dr Manmohan Singh had drawn up a plan to spend 15% of the Union Budget exclusively on Muslims is totally false and that his speech writers have lost balance.
"Article 112 of the Constitution of India contemplates only one Annual Financial statement, which is the Union Budget. How can there be two budgets?" Chidambaram wrote on X.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said Modi's Muslim budget statement was "typical Modi bombast and bogusness". In reality, Manmohan Singh was setting up a committee of chief ministers on agriculture in 2013 and then Modi became the prime minister, Jairam Ramesh said.
What is the ‘Muslim budget’? What did Modi say?
At a rally in Maharashtra's Nashik on Wednesday, Narendra Modi said Congress wanted to allocate 15% of the government budget for minorities. "When I was the chief minister (of Gujarat), the Congress had brought up this proposal. The BJP opposed this move strongly and hence it could not be implemented. But the Congress wants to bring this proposal again," Modi said.
"If Congress is elected, it will make two budgets on the basis of religion. I will not allow the Budget to be divided as a 'Hindu budget' and 'Muslim budget' and will not allow reservation based on religion," Modi said.
The statement came amid debate over Narendra Modi's clarification that he never indulged in Hindu-Muslim politics; he was only exposing Congress's politics of appeasement. The Congress has accused the prime minister of doing divisive politics as in a recent speech Modi -- commenting on 'wealth redistribution' -- made a statement on 'infiltrators', 'those who have more children'. In an interview, he clarified that he did not mean Muslims but poor families.
