Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said the sedition law would be made more stringent if the Bharatiya Janata Party is voted to power, ANI reported.
“Congress is saying that they will repeal the sedition law,” he said at a public meeting in Gandhidham, Gujarat, according to PTI. “I want to ask you all, should we forgive those anti-nationals who are trying to break the unity and social fabric of our country? If it’s within our powers, we will make the sedition law even more stringent. We will make such a strict law that it would send shivers down their spine.”
The senior BJP leader also criticised National Conference leader and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah over his demand for a separate prime minister for the state.
“I want to tell these leaders that if you continue to raise such demands, then we will be left with no other option than to abrogate Articles 370 and 35A of the Constitution,” Singh said. “We don’t want such an India,” he said, while blaming India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, for the Kashmir crisis. The articles grant special status to Jammu and Kashmir and privileges to residents of the state.
“Had Pandit Nehru given full powers to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to handle the issue, we might have got a solution at that time,” Singh said.
On Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, Singh said the government has definitely taken decisive steps towards uprooting corruption.
Singh said Congress leaders claim businessmen like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi ran away with crores of rupees with Modi’s help. “[But] who gave them the money,” he asked, claiming that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government gave most of them loans between 2008 and 2014.
“As soon as they saw that an alert chowkidar has come to power, they all fled... That chowkidar is now being called a thief,” he said, according to The Indian Express.
Singh alleged that although India was capable of making an anti-satellite missile in 2007, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh “stopped” the scientists from doing so. “At that time, only Russia, China and the US had that technology,” the home minister said. “When scientists approached Manmohan Singh for a green signal, he stopped them saying such a step would upset those three countries. But when scientists approached Modi, he immediately gave a go-ahead.”
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