While Muslims treat Bharatiya Janata Party as a pariah, party president Rajnath Singh has made an appeal to the minority community to at least give the party a chance to make the country a spiritual and economic super power.
“I appeal to Muslims to come close to the BJP. There is no space for hatred in our ideology. Our aim is not to grab power at the Centre but to make the country a super power with spiritual understanding between the communities without any discrimination,” Singh said while addressing reporters here on Wednesday.
On his first visit to the State capital after announcement of his name as the BJP candidature from lucknow, Singh said there was no place for religious bickering or discrimination. “I appeal to Muslim to give a mandate to the BJP for once and test our ability,” he said.
When asked why the party had not given a single ticket to Muslims in UP, Singh said: “No Muslim leader applied for (BJP) ticket in UP. It is not that the BJP has not given ticket to Muslims in other states. In other states like Orissa and Bihar we have fielded Muslim candidates because they opted for it.”
Rajnath Singh is facing heat over ticket distribution and probably he is the first BJP president whose effigy has been burnt by party workers.
“There was some anger over ticket distribution but it has died down,” Singh said and added: “Popularity of the party is so high that everyone wants ticket but we have to decide on merit. But I can assure that those who have not been given ticket would not be isolated in the party.”
Incidentally, Singh is contesting from lucknow displacing sitting MP lalji Tandon, who had expressed his annoyance over the move.
“Giving ticket to the turncoats was a part of the political strategy of the party and only a fraction of these tickets have gone to such candidates. Mark my words, those senior leaders who have been denied ticket would be given respect and honour once the party comes to power.”
When asked about Jaswant Singh, he said it was unfortunate that a senior leader like him could not be accommodated. The BJP chief said he would try to persuade Jaswant Singh to withdraw his candidature as an independent from Barmer lok Sabha seat in Rajasthan.
Hitting out at the Congress on its manifesto’s slogan on poor, Singh questioned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying when the Congress was claiming that poverty had decreased why was the subsidy amount to the poor increased.
“Garibi Hatao is an old slogan of the Congress that they never fulfilled. If the Congress had partially fulfilled the promises it made to the people, the situation would have been different,” he said.
Talking about the Gujarat model, Singh said that everyone appreciated the Gujarat model. “Even the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and US Parliamentary Committee have appreciated the works done by Narendra Modi in Gujarat,” he added.
Singh said that the target to achieve 272+ seats of BJP and the National Democratic Alliance would be fulfilled as people still remembered the regime of the NDA led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the failures of the Manmohan Singh Government of the UPA.