A unusual assault on the media by PM Modi I defy you to play the MM Singh video for Muslims first
On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly attacked a segment of the media for questioning his earlier statements on his predecessor Manmohan Singh’s support for giving Muslims a larger share of the country’s resources.
Modi cited a recent video of Singh taken on the eve of the 15th General Election in April 2009, in which Singh was heard restating his earlier statements that Muslims should have priority over other groups when it comes to the nation’s resources.
“Some people were incensed when I revealed the Congress’s discriminating tactics and the INDI bloc’s attitude. Their whole ecology started to target me. Since they haven’t been able to frighten me for 25 years, I defy them all to quit trying now. These individuals even went so far as to propagate the falsehood that MM Singh never supported the idea that Muslims should have the first claim to the nation’s riches.
Today, another old film purporting to show MM Singh repeating that Muslims had the first claim to national resources came to light, Modi stated.
In a rare public assault on the mainstream media, Modi challenged it to provide proof to the nation by citing the video.
“The Congress and its network remain mute in the wake of the release of this video. The media that had been criticizing my earlier remarks on the matter have now stopped talking about it. The other night, I observed these folks in the media. I don’t want to criticize them specifically, but I saw how they were pushing Modi without doing any fact-checking. The video proof was released today. I implore the media to broadcast this video for the whole nation. But given the nature of their environment, I am certain that they won’t. By nightfall, they’ll put this footage into a box,” the prime minister said in West Bengal.
Singh is heard stating in an April 2009 video released by the BJP and a number of accounts that support the saffron forces, “I think minorities, especially Muslim minorities, have a right to the country’s riches if they are impoverished. I said that Muslim minorities, in particular, have preference over all other minorities when it comes to national resources if they are impoverished. I maintain my position.”
The Congress-led INDI bloc is accused by PM Modi and the ruling BJP of trying to “snatch the constitutionally mandated reservation rights of SCs, STs, and OBCs and give these to Muslims” and of “ploys to redistribute the wealth of Indian masses by launching surveys and subsequent policy action.” These accusations form the basis of a whole campaign narrative.
