All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Asaduddin Owaisi and Trinamool Congress’s Mahua Moitra made sharp interventions during the no-confidence debate on Thursday by raising issues of minorities and majoritarian politics.
Referring to the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) front as “chowkidar” and the Opposition front as “dukandar” (store owner), Mr. Owaisi said neither front opens their mouth when minorities are oppressed. From calling Bilkis Bano’s rapists sanskari (cultured) to previous instances of Muslims being mob-lynched to the more recent incident of a Railway Protection Force (RPF) staff opening fire on Muslim passengers, the AIMIM leader said that an atmosphere of hate was prevalent.
“In recent times in a train, a uniformed terrorist after killing his senior went to different compartments, asked names, saw beards and then killed Muslims after saying that if you want to stay in this country, you have to vote for Modi. I want to know from the government if this is not an excellent example of radicalism and extremism? If it is so what is the government going to do about it,” he said.
Mr. Owaisi also raised the issue 750 buildings in Nuh being demolished without following due process of law because they belonged to Muslims and referred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court calling it “ethnic cleansing”.
Referring to the Quit India slogan being used by BJP members, he said that they would stop it if they know that Yusuf Meher Ali had coined the slogan and Mahatma Gandhi had spread across the country.
In a stinging attack, Ms. Moitra said the the Opposition bloc has been forced to bring a motion “not to bring down anything but to resurrect something – to resurrect India’s founding principles of equality and secularism which this government has buried six-feet under...”
“We are here to ask questions in our ‘tum abhi chup raho republic’ [now you remain quiet republic] - where the honourable PM [Narendra Modi] tells the Governor ‘chup raho’, where we as elected MPs in this House are routinely told ‘chup raho’. This motion is to break omertà, this code of silence in Manipur, the most pressing issue of the day on which we are all supposed to ‘raho chup’,” the Trinamool member said.
In Manipur, the BJP’s “majoritarian bravado” is destroying a State and tearing apart its people, Ms. Moitra alleged.
