Very recently, the EC barred the senior Congress leader Rondeep Surjewala from campaigning for 48 hours due to his unwarranted comments of misogynist nature against the BJP candidate former film actress Hemamalini. The EC is justified in taking action against the Congress leader. But the Prime Minister who is the custodian of 142 crore people of India and administers this country on behalf of the entire population belonging to all religious groups said at the Sunday meeting that the earlier Congress led government had said that Muslims have the first priority on the country’s wealth and also the Congress, if it comes to power, will distribute the assets to the infiltrators and those having more children. The targeted group was obvious.

Indian PM has every right to criticize the Congress manifesto in an election rally. Nobody will mind him blasting the Congress Party and other opposition leaders in party meetings. But on Sunday what he did was something unprecedented. His identification of the Muslim community and creating fear among the majority community that the Congress led INDIA bloc will redistribute assets including gold, silver among the ‘infiltrators’, was the height of his bigotry which was certainly the reflection of his panicky reaction after the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls on April 19.

In a scathing attack on the Congress, he pointed to the Opposition party's manifesto. "What Congress has said in its manifesto is serious. It has said that if the Congress forms the government, everyone's property will be surveyed, it will calculate gold belonging to mothers and sisters and then redistribute it. They won't even spare your mangalsutra," he said, adding that the Congress is now "in the grip of urban Naxals".

Prime Minister went a step further and said that when the Congress was in power under Dr Manmohan Singh, it had said Muslims have the first right on the country's wealth. "This means that they will gather this property and distribute it among people who have more children, among infiltrators. Will your hard-earned money be given to infiltrators? Do you accept this? The Congress manifesto is saying this."

The fact is that the BJP’s media cell circulated a distorted video on the 2006 National Development Council meeting to show the former PM Singh and the UPA government as the promoter of appeasement of minorities. The PMO itself circulated the text and cleared the controversy. Now in the course of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the same 2006 controversy with full knowledge that his version was distorted. For him, in election war, there is nothing fair or unfair, it has to be won irrespective of the disruption it causes to the social fabric of the country.

In December 2006, Dr.. Manmohan Singh said in his speech at the NDC"I believe our collective priorities are clear: agriculture, irrigation and water resources, health, education, critical investment in rural infrastructure, and the essential public investment needs of general infrastructure, along with programmes for the upliftment of SC/STs, other backward classes, minorities and women and children. The component plans for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will need to be revitalized. We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on resources. The Centre has a myriad other responsibilities whose demands will have to be fitted within the over-all resource availability”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a hardcore RSS man deliberately gave a distorted meaning to the portion ‘They must have the first claim on resources’ without mentioning the earlier portion which categorically states ‘ along with programmes for the upliftment of SC/STs, other backward classes, minorities and women and children’. The focus was clear. The programmes were meant for all underprivileged including Muslims and all of them have the first claim to resources.

The Congress and the entire opposition must not only seek the intervention of the Election Commission but also of the Supreme Court because this speech of Narendra Modi was the worst form of hate speech in the recent period. The Supreme Court has already alerted against the hate speeches in its observations earlier. It is high time that both the EC and the apex court take strong measures against the PM to restrain him from crossing the redline of model code of conduct. (IPA Service)