Earlier this month, the Indian National Congress released its manifesto, called Nyay Patra (Promise for Justice), for the 2024 General Elections. It prominently talked of caste census, raising the cap of 50% on reservations, jobs for youth, internships, and economic support for the poor among others.
Its focus has been on justice for women, adivasis, Dalit-OBCs, farmers, and student youth. One of its spokespersons stated that the manifesto addresses the steps needed to undo the injustices heaped on different sections of society during the last 10 years of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rule.
Narendra Modi criticised this manifesto by saying that it has the divisive imprint of Muslim League of yore and the remaining part has been filled by the Left ideology. One was immediately reminded of the fountainhead of Hindu nationalist ideology, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s, second sarsanghchalak, M.S. Golwalkar, who in his ‘Bunch of Thoughts’ articulates that the Hindu nation has three internal threats, Muslims, Christians and communists.
The two of these threats have been invoked by the BJP at various levels and are being reiterated now.
Goa CM Dr Pramod Sawant has also jumped onto the bandwagon and announced the manifesto as communal.
“The Cong manifesto is ‘communal’; the BJP is a secular party; we have taken steps to address the OCI issue; even though Goans may be living overseas, it is our responsibility to safeguard their properties in Goa. Congress manifesto is not working,” said CM Sawant in one of his speeches in Goa.
But Goa does not have any communal tension as of now but such statements can vitiate the atmosphere.
Goa needs sustainable development, saving Mhadei, resumption of mining and also controlling the issue of the influx of migrants.
Let the communal issues be dealt with by the people in Delhi, if they exist, Goa does not want to become like Karnataka or Maharashtra.
Congress targets PM
Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his controversial speech at an election rally a day ago, the Congress on Monday accused him of attempting to create communal polarisation for electoral gains.
The Congress stepped up its attack on Modi after he suggested that if the Congress came to power, it would redistribute people’s wealth to Muslims and cited former PM Manmohan Singh’s remark that the minority community had the first claim on the country’s resources.
Modi’s retort…
Following this, PM Modi Speaking with Network18 Group Editor-in-Chief Rahul Joshi, emphasised that he waited for 10 days for the media to point out the “evils” of the Congress manifesto. He added that the media should have analysed it in an unbiased manner rather than repeating what Congress presented before them.
PM Modi highlighted that after seeing the Congress party’s manifesto, he felt that it had the stamp of the Muslim League which should have shocked the media. He further stated that he was forced to bring out the truth as it seemed to be a big scam of the ecosystem to hide the evils of the Congress manifesto. For those unversed, the Muslim League is one of the major reasons and political parties that led to the bloodied partition of India.
The Prime Minister also charged the Congress party with insulting Dr. BR Ambedkar and the Indian Constitution by repeatedly attempting to provide reservations based on religion. He added that these attempts by the Congress party are a threat to the reservation of the SC and ST communities.
