The Rajasthan Police on Saturday arrested expelled Bharatiya Janata Party Minority Morcha leader Usman Ghani in an alleged breach-of-peace case, Zee News reported.
He will be presented before the sub-divisional magistrate, the news channel reported.
On Wednesday, Ghani was expelled from the Hindutva party for six years after he expressed disapproval of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent remarks about Muslims.
BJP leader Onkar Singh Lakhawat had said that Ghani was removed for “tarnishing” the party’s image in the press. “The party took cognisance of the act of Usman Ghani to tarnish its image and expelled him from the primary membership of the party for six years, considering it a breach of discipline,” Lakhawat said.
Ghani recently told a news channel that he, being a Muslim himself, was disappointed by the prime minister’s recent comments about the community during rallies in Rajasthan, Mint reported.
Ghani said that the party would likely lose a few seats in Rajasthan in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections due to Modi’s remarks. He added that in his meetings with Muslims, to seek votes for the BJP, members of the community had sought an explanation from him about the prime minister’s comments.
In an apparent reference to the Muslim community, Modi had claimed at an election rally in Rajasthan last week that the Congress would distribute citizens’ property among “infiltrators” and “those who have more children” if voted to power. Opposition leaders had labelled his remarks as hate speech.
Modi said: “When the Congress-led government was in power, they had said that Muslims have the first right over the country’s assets. This means that they will distribute wealth to those who have more children and those who are infiltrators. Is this acceptable to you?”
Modi was purportedly referring to remarks that Manmohan Singh made on December 9, 2006, in an address to the National Development Council. Singh, who was prime minister at the time, said that the country’s priorities were to uplift the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, minorities and women and children.
“We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development,” Singh had said. “They must have the first claim on resources.”
Though the BJP shared a video clip of Singh’s remarks on social media, the Congress noted that the section had been taken out of context.
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