Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday called the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh a "talabaaz sarkar" for shutting down the staff selection commission and said the party also intends to put a "tala", or lock, on Ayodhya's Ram temple.
Addressing a 'Vijay Sankalp' rally in Nahan in Sirmaur district, the prime minister claimed a conspiracy is being hatched to snatch the reservation for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and give it to Muslims.
As Modi took to the stage, he chanted 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' and evoked local deities. Coming to Sirmaur felt like a homecoming, he said.
"Neither Nahan nor Sirmaur is new for me but I have to say that today's atmosphere is new as I have never witnessed such a historic rally in Nahan," he said.
"I have come here to seek your blessings for a third term of the BJP, not for myself or my family but for a developed nation and developed Himachal," he told the gathering.
The prime minister said the people of Himachal Pradesh live along the border and know the value of a strong nation.
"I assure you that I won't let any harm come to you," he said.
Hitting out at the Congress over the dissolution of the Himachal Pradesh Staff Selection Commission (HPSSC), Modi said let alone giving one lakh jobs to the youth, the "talabaaz sarkar" of the Congress put a lock on the recruitment commission.
In February last year, the Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led state government disbanded the HPSSC whose functioning was suspended after a paper leak was detected in December 2022.
In October last year, the state government notified the Himachal Pradesh Rajya Chayan Aayog (HPRCA) to replace the Hamirpur-based HPSSC.
Modi further said, "The Congress opposed the Ram temple and teased us with slogans like 'mandir wahin banaenge, tareekh nahin btaenge'. We not only declared the date but also performed the Pran Pratishtha (of the Ram temple) and the Congress boycotted it to appease its vote bank." The prime minister claimed that an aide of a top Congress leader has said that a conspiracy is being hatched to put a lock on the Ram temple in Ayodhya and shift Ram Lalla to a tent again if the party wins the Lok Sabha polls.
Modi also alleged that a conspiracy is being hatched to snatch the reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs and give it to Muslims.
The Congress has already done it in Karnataka, he said. The Kolkata High Court has quashed OBC certificates conferred on 77 classes of Muslims to please the Muslim vote bank but West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is not honouring the court order, he said.
The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday struck down as illegal the OBC status of several classes in West Bengal granted since 2010, observing that the inclusion of 77 classes of Muslims in the list of backward categories was to "treat them as vote bank".
There are poor people in upper castes as well, Modi said.
He said his government has provided 10 per cent quota for the upper caste poor but did not snatch it from any other caste.
Modi also targeted the Congress for not accepting the demand for One Rank One Pension (OROP).
He said the Congress did not accept the demand for OROP for 40 years but after he declared at a rally of ex-servicemen in Jhajjar, Haryana in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls that the BJP would implement it, the Congress "insulted" the veterans by earmarking just Rs 500 crore for the scheme.
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