Aam Aadmi Party Chief Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday stepped up his attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party and said that if it is voted back to power, BJP President Amit Shah would become Union home minister, which would spell doom for the country.
Addressing a rally in Lohia Maidan, Goa, where the AAP is contesting the Lok Sabha elections as well as bye-polls in four Assembly seats, Kejriwal said, “If Amit Shah is made the country’s home minister, there would be mob lynchings across the country,” he said. “If there are three mob lynchings in Goa, tourists will stop coming to the state. You can imagine what will happen to the state’s economy then.”
Urging people not to re-elect Narendra Modi as prime minister, he said, “I fold my hands and appeal to you to save the country. If the Modi-Amit Shah duo come back to power, if Modi becomes prime minister again, the country’s Constitution and secular structure will be destroyed.”
He alleged that the BJP wants to stay in power in perpetuity, following in the footsteps of German dictator Adolf Hitler. He cited recent speeches by BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj, who claimed last month that if his party came back to power, there would be no elections in 2024, and Amit Shah, who said that his party is looking at being in power for 50 years. “2019 is do or die election to save India and the Constitution,” Kejriwal said.
Kejriwal took another dig at the BJP over Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s remark that Modi’s re-election would bode better for India-Pakistan talks. “Pakistan has had one aim since Independence, how to weaken and divide India,” he added. “What Pakistan could not do in 70 years, Modi and Amit Shah did in five years. They have filled poison in people’s hearts [by dividing them on religious lines].” he said. “Pakistan can’t get a better prime minister for India.”
“Pakistan is chanting ‘Modi, Modi’”, he added.
Kejriwal also took on Shah over his recent comment on the BJP’s manifesto promise of implementing the National Register of Citizens across the country. The NRC is ostensibly an exercise to identify undocumented migrants in the country. At a rally last week, Shah said that his party would remove “every single infiltrator from the country” except Hindus, Buddhist and Sikhs.
Kejriwal on Saturday described this as a “very dangerous statement”. He said Goa has a sizeable Christian and Muslim population, together making up six lakh, or 40% of the population. “How will Amit Shah implement this in Goa? What will Amit Shah do with these six lakh people?” he asked. “Will he throw them in the sea? Will he have them killed? Will have mob lynchings done? Will he have riots done?”
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