New Delhi: BJP’s new President J.P. Nadda may have been addressing rallies for the February 8 Delhi Assembly election, but it’s the CAA, Triple Talaq, Article 370 that rule the discourse.
While Nadda may have started his speech with the issue of regularisation of Delhi’s illegal colonies, soon he steered to BJP’s familiar territories.
“In our country, if we can abolish sati pratha, child marriage, dowry and other such atrocities against women, why shouldn’t we abolish triple talaq?,” Nadda asked in Delhi’s Pandav Nagar area.
Projecting it as an achievement for the Delhi polls, he asserted: “PM Modi freed Muslim women from the atrocity by removing the practice of Triple Talaq. This is a step towards empowering women. It is not practiced even in Pakistan.”
Soon, the new BJP boss started talking Kashmir to electorate of the east Delhi assembly constituency that has no or negligible presence of Kashmiris.
“In the past, BDC elections were held for the first time after independence in Jammu and Kashmir. BJP has won 80 seats in this election, Congress has won 1 seat, PDP and National Conference are out of the election,” he said.
If triple talaq and Kashmir are discussed in Delhi election campaign, how can the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act be far behind, and Nadda targeted the Congress with “misleading” the people over the legislation.
“Congress tried to sell propaganda to our Muslim brothers. They said that Muslims will lose their citizenship. No one will lose their citizenship. This Act gives citizenship.”
Clearing the air about influx of people from neighbouring nations into India, Nadda clarified: “No one is being brought to India, contrary to the lies being spread. These people are already living in India as refugees.” He even took a passing dig at the protestors of Shaheen Bagh without naming the place before adding that Congress’s support to them is a “vote bank politics”.
Nadda reaffirmed what Shah earlier said – that there will be no rollback on the CAA.
But as the claps melted into silence after the rally got over and Nadda headed to his car amid supporters jostling for a selfie with him, many were left wondering whether it is a campaign for the Lok Sabha or the Assembly election.
