‘Not polarising to show Congress brought religion-based quota’: PM Modi to TOI

NEW DELHI: “To show that Congress violated the Constitution by enacting laws to provide reservations on the basis of religion is not polarisation," PM Narendra Modi asserted, taking head-on the criticism that he has tried to promote polarisation through his speeches.

In an exclusive interview with TOI after the second round of polls, Modi also stood by his statement that his predecessor Manmohan Singh had indeed said Muslims had the first claim on the nation's resources. He also declared that he was determined to fulfil BJP's commitment to implement a Uniform Civil Code. "It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society. We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other community is stuck in a time warp due to appeasement. We will do everything in our capacity to make UCC a reality in India," the PM said, while also renewing his vow to move forward on his ‘one nation-one poll’ plan.

Modi expressed confidence of getting a third straight term, and said he was striving for a 400-plus tally to foil the "evil designs of opposition parties to take away reservations and rights of SCs/STs and OBCs and give it to their vote bank".



The PM came down hard on the push for redistribution through measures such as wealth and inheritance tax. "I do not think they are solutions by any stretch of imagination. These are actually dangerous problems disguised as solutions. Would you work day and night if the govt would take away your money at the end in the name of redistribution?" he asked, adding these ideas would "kill" the start-up revolution and were merely a way to please "the opposition's vote bank".

He further said that these ideas carried the risk of creating "complete and irreversible communal disharmony".

"Our Constitution protects the property of all minorities. This means that when Congress talks of redistribution, it cannot touch the properties of minorities, it cannot consider Waqf properties for distribution, but it will eye the properties of other communities," he added.

Modi dubbed Rahul Gandhi’s proposal to conduct a survey to estimate people's assets "Maoist thinking and ideology" and a “recipe for disaster" which would lead to "raiding every home".

Asked about the opposition’s charge that he would change the Constitution in case he got a super mandate, Modi said, "It is ironic that people who have changed the Constitution maximum number of times are saying that we will change the Constitution. But before asking such a question, you should analyse my track record."

Exuding confidence about BJP's prospects in the South, Modi said opposition parties had raised a "false bogey of discrimination" to divert attention from their failures.

On foreign policy, he was unfazed about India being seen as disregarding the "rules of the international order" to pursue its national interests. "Should not the goal of our foreign policy be to advance our national interests? Our approach to foreign policy is ‘nation first’," he said.

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