Noting that a voter turnout of 66-67% cannot be termed low, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said the Opposition alliance has not been able to enthuse their supporters to come to the polling booth and vote and that they seemed to have lost faith in the Congress-led Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance as an alternative.
Having addressed 51 public meetings and covered 54 constituencies since elections were announced, Singh accused the Congress for spreading rumours that the BJP would change the Constitution. “It is under Congress rule that 85 amendments were made to the Constitution. They changed the Preamble, the soul of the Constitution… you are trying to blame us now,” Singh said in an interview Saturday morning to The Indian Express.
He said Congress was creating fear and confusion among people by floating concepts like “wealth distribution” and “inheritance tax” which he said “could lead to economic recession and discourage people from creating wealth”.
It was this that forced BJP leaders to explain things in the “language understood by the people”, Singh, one of the most senior ministers in the Cabinet, said responding to a question on the plunging level of political discourse.
Addressing an election rally in Rajasthan in April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had targeted the Congress and said if voted to power, that party could distribute the nation’s wealth among “infiltrators” and “those who have more children”. “Brothers and sisters, this Urban Naxal thinking will not spare even the mangal sutra of my mothers and sisters,” he had said.
“Try to understand the context. Sam Pitroda talked about inheritance tax. You tell me, will it not lead to economic recession… Certain words are used to make people understand easily… When they say they will do an X-ray or conduct a survey, this is what they mean… For ordinary people, these are important and critical issues,” said Singh, who is BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from Lucknow which goes to polls on May 20.
Singh, who rose from the ranks and was a former President of the BJP, also tried to turn the tables on the Opposition for the recent developments in Surat where the BJP candidate was elected unopposed and in Indore where the Congress candidate defected after filing nomination.
He said independent India has seen as many as 28 unopposed elections, and 20 Congress candidates in the past have been elected unopposed. “Why did you give tickets to such candidates? If someone comes to us and says ‘I want to support you’, should we say ‘No’. We never approached them. They may have realised that the Modi government is doing well and they cannot win the seat. Why are you blaming us? Keeping the candidate on your side was your responsibility.”
He also asserted that the lower turnout in the first two phases – about which the Election Commission has expressed concern – will not impact the BJP’s target of 400-plus for the NDA.
Singh maintained that the BJP government believed minorities and Muslims have the same rights as anyone else in the country. “The question is, if we are discriminating against them, wouldn’t it have led to discrimination on how the benefits of the social welfare schemes of the government are distributed? That hasn’t happened. Minorities are not second-class citizens in the country. We treat them at par with others. Majority or minority, everyone has equal rights. Our efforts are to uplift the downtrodden and those who are socio-economically backward in the society.”
To a question if the removal of one Rashtriya Rifles force in 2021 from Reasi could have resulted in an increase in the number terror incidents in the Rajouri-Poonch belt over the last three years, Singh said, “There have not been too many terror incidents, it is negligible as compared to the past. It has never been this less. Bigger incidents have taken place in the past.” He said it is for the Army chief to take a decision on force deployment.
To another question on what provoked him a month ago to say that India will enter Pakistan and hit terrorists who carry out attacks on Indian soil and then return to Pakistan, Singh said, “Foreign terrorists come from Pakistan, not from China, Bangladesh, or Burma. If they come in and run across the Line of Control (LoC), should we withdraw fire? Should we not kill them?”