PM seeks strong mandate to prevent rollback of Article 370 abrogation and Ram temple construction

PTI, May 7, 2024, 3:30 PM IST

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said he wants the BJP-led NDA to win 400 seats in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls to ensure the Congress does not bring back Article 370 in Kashmir and put a ”Babri lock” on the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Addressing an election rally at Dhar in Madhya Pradesh, Modi also accused the Congress of belittling Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, adding the opposition party has started saying he had a very little role in framing the Constitution.

”The truth is that the Congress parivar deeply hates Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar,” Modi said.

The PM said the Congress is spreading rumours that if he gets 400 Lok Sabha seats, he will change the Constitution.

It seems as if the Congress people’s intelligence is focussed on their vote bank, he said.

”It is important for the people of the country to know that the BJP-led NDA already has 400-plus seats in Parliament. We used this number to scrap Article 370 (which provided special status to Jammu and Kashmir),” the PM said.

“Modi wants 400 seats so that the Congress won’t bring back Article 370 to spoil the game, Modi wants 400 seats so that the Congress won’t put a Babri lock on the Ram temple in Ayodhya,” he said.

The PM said that about 14 days back, he challenged the Congress to give in writing to the 140 crore people of the country that it will not give reservation on the basis of religion.

”Secondly, I asked them to give in writing that they will never snatch the reservation being given to the SCs, STs and OBC and thirdly, to give in writing that they will never give reservation to Muslims by committing a dacoity from the existing OBC quota, but they are not responding and sitting silently by putting a lock on their mouths,” he said.

The PM said he wants 400 seats in the Lok Sabha to prevent the Congress from ”dacoity” of the OBC quota to benefit its vote bank. “We have also used these 400 plus seats to extend SC/ST quota for 10 years, appoint a tribal woman as the country’s President for the first time and to provide reservation to women,” Modi said.

The PM said he is asking for 400 seats so that he can stop every conspiracy of the Congress and the opposition INDIA alliance.

”Modi is asking for 400 seats so that the Congress does not hand over the country’s vacant land and islands to other countries, it does not take away the reservation given to SCs/STs/OBCs and give it to its vote bank, and does not declare all castes of its vote bank as OBC overnight,” he said.

Further targeting the Congress, he said the opposition party doesn’t want to give the credit to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. ”The Congress has started saying that he (Ambedkar) had a very little role in framing the Constitution and Pandit Nehru made the most significant contribution in the making of the Constitution,” Modi said.

The Congress has stabbed Ambedkar and the Constitution in the back, Modi said.

He said the Congress has sunk so deep into the quagmire of appeasement politics that it cannot see anything else.

”If Congress has its way, it will say that its vote bank has the first right to live in India,” he added.

”Till Modi is alive, he will foil attempts to erase India’s identity in the name of fake and pseudo secularism,” the PM said, adding that this is the guarantee of a ”child of thousands of years old India”.

Modi said in the first phase of Lok Sabha polls, the opposition was defeated, in the second phase, it was destroyed and today, whatever is left of the opposition in the third phase will also collapse.

”Because the whole country has decided ‘fir ek baar’,” he said, to which the people added ”Modi sarkar”.

The prime minister said these ”dynastic people” first distorted the country’s history and made people forget the ”great sons of the country’s struggle for independence”.

”These dynasts wrote false history to glorify themselves and now they have started creating lies about the Constitution also,” he said.

The BJP has fielded Savitri Thakur from Dhar and Anita Nagar Singh Chauhan from neighbouring Ratlam-Jhabua (ST) seat, where polling will be held in the fourth phase on May 13.