Asaduddin Owaisi hits out at RSS chief's Muslim population rise claims

Hyderabad: AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi and Member of Parliament from Hyderabad hit out RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat's claims that the Muslim population in India has increased. Owaisi called out Bhagwat's statement made during a Vijayadashmi rally speech, terming it full of lies and half-truths.

Owaisi tweeted that "As usual, RSS Mohan's speech today was full of lies & half-truths. He called for a population policy & repeated the lie that the Muslim & Christian population has increased. Muslim population growth rate has had the sharpest decline among all. There's no 'demographic imbalance'."

He said instead of worrying about the demographic changes, Bhagwat should have spoken against the grave social evils like child marriages and sex-selective abortions. To establish his case about the gender gap, he pointed out that "84 per cent of married kids are Hindus. Between 2001-2011, the Muslim female-male ratio leapt from 936 to 951 women for every 1000 Muslim men. But, the Hindu ratio only rose from 931 to 939, he claimed. India has already achieved replacement level fertility rates, without any coercive population policy."

Owaisi's series of tweets also mentioned how Mohan Bhagwat was worried about India's ageing population. "Similarly, fact-free Mohan is worried about India's ageing population & the need to have a younger population to help the ageing. He should tell his student Modi about it," Owaisi said in a tweet.

"No man has destroyed India's demographic dividend like he has. The majority of India is young: they lack education, govt support & jobs. What's the future of a country whose PM cannot promise anything more than a few pakora stalls," the AIMIM leader said.

Saying that a population control policy would mean fewer youths of working age, he asked how the government will support an ageing population.