This ill becomes a prime minister

During the election campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's controversial sectarian remarks during his campaigns in various constituencies in the northern states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh continued. It was all too clear that all the statements PM Modi is making by categorizing voters by caste, putting Muslims on the enemy side, and blaming the Congress are creating sectarianism. He made it clear that he would not give reservation to Muslims based on religion as long as he was in power. He believes that this way he can impress Hindu sects. Modi is throwing the question at the Congress whether the party dares to say that the Congress, which is eyeing the vote bank, will abolish the Muslim reservation based on religion. He keeps repeating the wild claim that the INDIA Bloc, mainly Congress, is taking away the reservation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Backward Castes and giving it to Muslims. But the fact of the matter is: when Muslims are not benefited enougby the common OBC reservation with ample representation, due to their extreme backwardness, then provision would be made for sub-categories of reservation- a fact which anyone can se as logical. But even in such dire situations, Modi and the Sangh Parivar are of the mindset that Muslim populations that are more than 15% do not deserve the benefit of reservation. That is why he is eager to call Muslims 'infiltrators' and 'those who give birth to more children' even if it detracts from the dignity of the office of Prime Minister. How can a Prime Minister make such an unedifying remark about a section that constitutes more than 15% of the nation's population?

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The Prime Minister is also making baseless allegations that the reservation given by Dr BR Ambedkar to Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes has been snatched and given away to Muslims by the Congress based on religion. This tactic praises Ambedkar and blames Muslims at the same time. Not only that, the prime minister also accused the Congress of destroying the Constitution of India and alleged that it was Jawaharlal Nehru who initiated the constitutional amendments. This comes at a time when critics are warning that the Modi administration is destroying the spirit and basic structure of the Indian Constitution and will do away with it. It is not because of the amendments of the Constitution, but because of the damage done through amendments, enactments, and acts on its basic principles like democracy, secularism, and federalism. True, the Nehru administration amended the constitutional clauses guaranteeing equality with such provisions as to remove obstacles to reservation. In fact, it is due to the existence of those provisions that even today all the reservations, including the Scheduled Castes/Classes/OBC reservations, which Modi claims to champion, exist as legal and being implemented in the country. Further, Muslims as a religious community get reservation in states according to their status where it is statistically proven that they are backward as a religious community.

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This verbal ramapage is happening because leaders have faith in their followers who applaud every statement made by the leaders. They also have the assurance that the Election Commission, which is also in BJP's pocket, would not take any action regardless of the Model Conduct Rules of Elections. It may be recalled that contrary to the usual practice, the Election Commission sought an explanation from the BJP party president in the complaint against the statement made by the Prime Minister. And in a probable balancing act, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge was served with a notice on a not-so-serious complaint against Rahul Gandhi. The practice of keeping the official institutions and systems in the pocket and misleading and instigating the voters through speeches without preparing for factual analysis, although they may pass the legal test in current circumstances, hardly becomes the dignity expected of the Prime Minister who as one representing 140 crore people is bound to display statesmanship.

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