AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi on April 24 challenged Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to make his stand clear on the controversial remarks against Muslims made recently by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Hyderabad MP was addressing an election rally in Kishanganj, where the AIMIM's Bihar unit chief and MLA Akhtarul Iman is locked in a triangular contest with sitting Congress MP Mohd Javed and Mujahid Alam of JD(U), which is headed by the Chief Minister.
"What has happened to Nitish Kumar? He has not spoken a word on Narendra Modi's utterances? Has he turned dumb? Is milk curdling inside his mouth", asked Mr. Owaisi.
The allusion was to the PM's address at a rally in Rajasthan where he accused the Congress of planning to give away belongings of poor people, including "mangalsutras" of women, to Muslims who "have more children" and accounted for a large number of "inflitrators (ghuspaithiye)".
Talking to the media, Mr. Owaisi warned "Muslims are the largest minority community in the country. They have a population of nearly 17 crore. Narendra Modi is spreading hatred against them. He has been doing so since 2002 (when communal violence broke out in Gujarat, under Modi's Chief Ministership).
If there are fresh riots in the country, Mr. Modi shall be squarely responsible".
In his election speech, Mr. Owaisi accused both the BJP as the Congress of having become "washing machines".
"Anybody with a corruption taint gets a clean chit no sooner than he aligns with BJP. Similarly, the most rabidly communal elements in BJP become paragons of secularism as soon as they gain entry into the Congress", alleged the Hyderabad MP.
Taking strong exception to Mr. Modi's "ghuspaithiya" jibe, Mr. Owaisi said, "the real infiltrators are the Chinese troops which have been occupying so much of our territory in Ladakh and other places. If the Prime Minister has the courage, he should drive them out".
The Hyderabad MP added, "so much of hatred Modi has for Muslims in his own country. But when he goes to Dubai, he hugs the head of the state there exclaiming Ya Habibi! When he meets the monarch of Saudi Arabia he holds the hands of the king tight, refusing to let it go".
Mr. Owaisi added, "Muslims of the country rubbed shoulders with their Hindu brethren in the freedom struggle. The RSS, in which Modi has his roots, had played no role in the national movement".
He added, "Modi has the temerity of making crass statements befitting street lumpens. The fact is Muslims' fertility rate has gone down. But because of discrimination, the community has a higher rate of poverty and has relatively less access to higher education".
"Before indulging in diatribe about mangalsutra, Modi should repent for having turned so many of our women into widows during the COVID pandemic when corpses were seen floating on rivers because of faulty policies of his government. Even in Delhi, people were dying because of oxygen shortage", alleged Mr. Owaisi.
He added, "power seems to have filled Modi with arrogance. He should look at the royal structures of Delhi, which are now in ruins. It would remind him of the ephemeral nature of power".
