‘Modi blatantly targeting Muslims in election speech’
New Delhi: India’s main opposition Congress party filed a complaint to the Election Commission on Monday saying Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi is “blatantly targeting” minority Muslims in a campaign speech.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the world’s most populous country is constitutionally secular and its election code bans canvassing based on “communal feelings”.
Modi’s muscular Hindu-first politics is a key part of his electoral appeal and his opponents accuse him of marginalising India’s 200 million Muslim population.
The prime minister usually steers away from explicit references to religion — the word “Hindu” does not appear in his Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) 76-page election manifesto.
But at a weekend election rally in Rajasthan, Modi claimed a previous Congress government had said that “Muslims have the first right over the nation’s wealth”.
He said if Congress won it will be distributed among those who have more children. It will be distributed to the infiltrators.
“Do you think your hard-earned money should be given to infiltrators? Would you accept this?”
Critics said the phrases were references to Muslims.
Congress party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told reporters outside the Commission’s office: “We hope concrete action will be taken.”
Earlier this year, Modi presided over the inauguration of a grand temple to the deity Ram, built on the site of a centuries-old mosque razed by Hindu zealots.
