Shah, who was speaking at ET Now Global Business Summit , said that minorities, particularly Muslims, were being misled on CAA that had no provision to take away anybody’s citizenship. He said Uniform Civil Code (UCC), recently enacted by Uttarakhand, would be adopted by other states/UTs based on the outcome of discussions by social and religious groups on its provisions as well as legal scrutiny.
While accusing Rahul of following the policy of telling lies publicly and repeatedly despite knowing that PM Modi’s caste, Ghanchi Modh, was categorised as an OBC caste, Shah said “it is unfortunate that the caste of a globally-respected leader like PM Modi is being raised. Rahul has no idea of the difference between a caste and bloc. Modi ji had only said that he is an OBC. Let me clarify that Modi’s caste was included in Gujarat’s OBC list on July 25, 1994, by then Congress govt led by Chhabildas Mehta. Later in 2000, based on Congress recommendation from 1994, it was also included in the Central OBC list as well. Notably, Modi had not fought any election till then,” home minister said, while turning the heat back on Congress for not doing anything for OBCs by sitting on the Kalelkar and Mandal Commission report.
Countering Rahul’s contention regarding miniscule numbers of OBC secretaries in govt of India, Shah said that lack of representation at higher rungs was because the reservation for “backwards” was not implemented by Congress govts, and accused the Congress leader of blindly raising issues based on “notes shared by NGOs”. He said that Rahul had no right to hold Bharat Jodo yatras as members of the party were speaking of dividing India along north-south lines and the party leadership had not cared to distance itself from such a statement.
On UCC, Shah said while BJP had been pitching for it since Jan Sangh days, “UCC is a Constitutional agenda”. He cited Article 44, saying that it empowers legislatures to enact UCC at an appropriate time…Nehru was a signatory …But Congress later forgot about UCC for the sake of appeasement,” he said. As regards to CAA, Shah said it was only meant to grant citizenship to persecuted minorities of neighbouring nations, “who were assured by Congress leaders during Partition that they would be welcome any time in India”. “They later reneged on the assurance,” Shah added.
Shah declared that the Modi govt shall be going into the general election, confident of winning a third term on the basis of India’s progress over the past 10 years and people’s trust in Modi catapulting the country into top global order in the next 10 years.