Narendra Modi didn’t mention any community by name

Any political party is capable of winning a majority and forming a government in Gujarat without Muslim votes. However, BJP believes that it...

Any political party is capable of winning a majority and forming a government in Gujarat without Muslim votes. However, BJP believes that it has to reach out to Muslims, respond to their aspirations and win their hearts to emerge as the representative of all sections.

Those having a vested interest in keeping Muslims as their permanent votebank have always devised measures to keep them away from the BJP through a consistent campaign of calumny and falsehood. The latest weapon employed by them is a twisted version of some remarks made by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the course of Gujarat Gaurav Yatra.

He has informed the BJP high command that he did not mention any community while referring to the family planning programme. A wrong interpretation of Modi’s remarks, followed by a hue and cry by both Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Congress president Sonia Gandhi over the issue smack of a deep-rooted conspiracy.

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Both have conveniently chosen to ignore the fact that Modi has contradicted the way his remarks have been reported and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu have unequivocally condemned the Gujarat violence.

The Congress, now seeking to appropriate secularism, was, at one time, untouchable for Muslims thanks to its projection as a Hindu organisation by the Muslim League.

The minority party scared the Muslims sometimes by citing the Hindu spiritual moorings of Mahatma Gandhi and sometimes the very name of Sardar Patel, notwithstanding the presence of great Muslim leaders like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai and Maulana Hasrat Mahani. The roles have changed now.

The Congress has found a whipping boy in BJP. I wish to tell my pseudo-secular friends that it would not take Muslims long to embrace the BJP. The Congress has fooled Muslims for decades by keeping them focused on non-issues like Urdu, personal law and Babri Masjid.

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The sole way to achieve upliftment is through literacy and employment which is possible only by being in the mainstream, not by staying as somebody’s votebank.

(As told to Pradeep Kaushal)