Shah promises BJP will never look to scrap reservation, PM urges workers to deliver party’s message of economic growth to poor and backward sections.
Mumbai: Amid growing voices of dissent within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as well as the larger National Democratic Alliance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah stepped up to counter the narrative and take on the opposition on the party’s 38th foundation day Friday.
Multiple issues, including the recent Dalit agitation, have pushed the BJP on to the back foot, and both leaders sought to underscore that the party stood for the poor and the marginalised, recounting the various schemes that the government runs for the poor.
Speaking to party workers via a video interaction through his app, Modi said: “We want to improve the lives of the ordinary man. We want to take benefits of economic growth to the poor and backward sections such as Dalits… Our opponents cannot digest our success.
“They cannot digest that a poor mother’s son and someone from a backward caste has become the PM, and that a party they called a ‘Baniya-Brahmin party’ has made a Dalit leader the country’s president.”
He added that the party’s history, its thought and its decision-making process show that “it is the only fully democratic party”, without any dynasty, casteism and so on.
Meanwhile, speaking at a massive BJP rally at Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex, Shah emphasised the BJP’s commitment to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and maintained that the party will never let reservations be scrapped.
Shah said: “There are deliberate lies being spread. Rahul Baba says SC & ST Prevention of Atrocities Act has been demolished. No one has demolished it. They say we will scrap reservations.
“Rahul ji, (Sharad) Pawar sahab, open your ears and listen. The BJP will never scrap reservations, and not just that, it will never let you touch reservations either. This is the BJP’s commitment.”
He added that on 14 April, Babasaheb Ambedkar’s birth anniversary, “thousands of our workers will go to the grassroots and spread the party’s message”.
Significance of the grand celebrations
While the party celebrates its foundation day every year, the celebrations this year were of a much larger scale, to put up a show of strength ahead of the 2019 elections.
Modi and Shah’s statements to the BJP cadre come at a time when there has been a wave of protests against the softening of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act by the Supreme Court, and the government’s alleged inability to defend the law.
Some of the BJP’s own MPs have spoken out about the targeting of people from the SC and ST communities.
Despite signs of trouble within the NDA, with the Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party (TDP) having recently walked out of the alliance and old allies like the Shiv Sena constantly threatening to quit, Shah shrugged off any conflict, saying the number of allies has only grown since 2014.
Speaking at a press conference after the rally, Shah also made overtures to the BJP’s bitter ally, Shiv Sena, which has resolved to contest the next election on its own strength. He said: “Hamari hardik iccha hain ki woh saath mein rahein (It is our heartfelt wish that they stay with us).”
The BJP president constantly targeted Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, dismissing the BJP’s recent loss in the Uttar Pradesh bypolls and highlighting the Congress’s debilitation, and how the BJP has snatched power from the latter in 11 states.
Amid talk of opposition parties trying to cobble up support against the Modi government, the BJP president likened the political entities to snakes, dogs, cats and mongooses, trying to jump on to a single tree to save themselves from the flood.
“These kind of parties do not usually come together. Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party, Congress-Trinamool Congress, Congress-Chandrababu Naidu. Parties whose ideologies don’t even match are coming together to put up a front, fearing Modi,” Shah said.
Mumbai-based political analyst Surendra Jondhale said Shah’s speech seemed to be more of an attempt to set things in his own house in order and try to boost the morale of party workers than send a message to the opposition.
“The fact that he is talking about every issue, right from the anger among Dalits to Rahul Gandhi to restless allies means that the situation is not very comfortable. Also, the newer allies that Shah referred to are parties from the northeast, which contributes very few MPs. He wanted to boost the political morale of BJP followers rather than give any message to the opposition. This was a clear message to say — ‘don’t desert’,” Jondhale said.
With inputs from Ruhi Tewari in New Delhi