Ahead of the Parliament elections, the BJP is reaching out to Muslims, saying the party should be given a chance to prove itself and that it was ready to apologise for its mistakes “by bowing our heads”.
BJP president Rajnath Singh told a Muslim convention organised by the party: “Go to the polling booths not to form any party’s government, but to build the nation. If you have a question or doubts, ask us. Please note that whenever, wherever if there had been any mistake and shortcoming on our part, I assure you that we will apologise to you by bowing our heads.”
The BJP chief, however, didn’t elaborate on whether he was referring to any particular incident.
At a separate event, Rajnath said the party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi was the “most targeted” politician in independent India.
“There were riots in Gujarat before Modi, even during the Congress regime, and even in Assam, but Modi was targeted the most.
“It was alleged that Modi said ‘fire as many bullets for 24 hours, kill as many as you can’... I have been a Chief Minister and can say with confidence that no Chief Minister ever wants an anarchy-like situation to develop on his watch. How much mental trauma and pressure he would have faced, you can imagine,” he said.
During the Muslim convention titled ‘Modi for PM: Mission 272+ Role of Muslims’, Rajnath said the Congress was propagating falsehoods and that the party wasn’t even ready to accept the clean chit the Gujarat Chief Minister had got from courts.
“The Congress is playing vote-bank politics to defame Modi and the BJP. Try and understand this, they want Muslims to move away from the BJP. Now the court has given him a clean chit. What else is left against him?”
Rajnath further said the party wasn’t against Muslims and that the community should not go by the false propaganda against it.
He attacked the Congress, saying it was a communal party seeking to divide the country along religious lines.
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