Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad on Saturday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been “insulting” Indians by frequently referring to Pakistan as a threat.
Addressing a press conference at the party office here, he said, “Pakistan is a dead horse... Just to divert issues, Pakistan’s name is raised. What is Pakistan? If you send Kashmir police, they can also defeat Pakistan.” He added, “It is very insulting to say that Pakistan will attack us,” he said.
He accused Mr. Modi of repeatedly resorting to rhetoric in the name of Pakistan to divert the nation’s attention from real issues such as unemployment, declining GDP, farmers’ distress, and rising prices of essential commodities. “I have not seen the Prime Minister speaking on unemployment, the Home Minister speaking on farmers’ issues, any Minister talking about improving the GDP, and any of the BJP leaders speaking on controlling price rise. These are the issues that concern each and every individual, whatever religion or caste they may belong to,” he said.
On the protests against the amended citizenship law, the senior Congress leader said that in the past few decades he had not seen such a “spontaneous agitation” taking place across the country. “All sections of people are part of the protests... The entire country has risen to the occasion against this Act,” he said.
Noting that many political parties had opposed the the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, Mr. Azad said the BJP government used “brute majority” in the Lok Sabha to pass the Bill and in the Rajya Sabha it was passed with a very narrow margin. Five regional parties such as the BJD, the JD(U) and the YSR Congress, among others, who supported the Bill, had now realised that they committed a “blunder”, he said.
Denying his party’s hand in the anti-CAA and the anti-NRC protests across the country, he said the BJP was making false allegations as they were inexperienced to rule such a vast and diverse country.
