New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday came put in defence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in wake of questions surrounding the treatment of Muslims in India and his answer on the subject during a press conference in the US, while hittin g back at former US President Barack Obama saying under his rule, the US had “bombed six Muslim-majority nations”.
She also hit back at Congress and other opposition parties of raising non-issues without data.
Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters here, Sitharaman said: “Egypt is on sixth position in terms of Muslim population and Prime Minister Modi getting highest award of Egypt is an issue of pride for India. Modi has got 13 awards till date.”
Saying that they want to congratulate Modiji for getting the highest award of Egypt, she said that how the PM has got 13 awards, including six awards given by countries, where Muslims are in majority.
“Prime Minister Modi himself during his press conference in US said that how his government works on ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ principle and doesn’t discriminate against any community whatsoever. But fact is, when people repeatedly join in this debate and highlight issues which are non-issues in a way, because if there are issues in states which are to be raised, they are raised at the state level and law and order is a state subject, people are taking care of it, elected governments are there in states which respond to it,” she said.
“Just alleging without basic data in hand just tells us these are organised campaigns which purposely are being levelled at the doorstep of Prime Minister. Otherwise why would the countries give such an honour to the Prime Minister. And why would there be a distortion in understanding how India and its minority population irrespective of which religion they belong to are part of the mainstream,” she said.
Taking on former US President Obama for his comments on condition of Muslims in India during an interview, Sitharaman said: “I was shocked. When the Prime Minister was speaking at the press conference, a former US President was giving statement on Indian Muslims…
“We want good ties with the US but there too we get remarks about religious freedom in India. A former President – under whose rule six Muslim-majority countries were bombed with more than 26,000 bombs – how will people trust his allegations? From Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, it was a war-like situation in seven countries,” she said.
She claimed that it is the reason why opposition leaders don’t talk in favour of India as they won’t be able to defeat Modi, they bring such people and due to them, they participate in debates without knowing the ground details.
She also slammed the Congress saying she thinks because they can’t counter the BJP or PM Modi electorally – the Karnataka election result notwithstanding – that is why they are running these campaigns. And the Congress has had a big role in this in the past few elections.
“They go to Pakistan and seek their help for changing government and even they take help of the toolkit in India from abroad. It seems they don’t have trust in themselves and thus they adopt such route to make accusations against Prime Minister,” she said.
Sitharaman also said: “I find this deliberate attempt to vitiate the atmosphere in this country because they think that they cannot win against developmental policies of Prime Minister Modi.
Highlighting the work of the BJP government, she said that whether it was giving the poor houses, toilets, cooking cylinders to giving respect to women to making sure that every policy works for the poor and understanding democracy and supporting democracy.
“And they think they cannot defeat Modi, therefore they create an atmosphere of insecurity in this country. Tell me how many people were speaking in country. All those questioning the Prime Minister should put their achievements on the table before making allegations like this,” the Minister added.
(IANS)
