Shah misleads with debunked claims over Cong manifesto

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah was on the campaign trail in Telangana on Sunday. He lashed out against Congress and Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) accusing them of ignoring the sentiments of Hindus and instead engaging in appeasement politics.

In his address in Narayanpet and Amangal assembly seats, he squarely attacked the Congress for promising sops to minorities. The claims he spoke about in these rallies had already debunked by web portals like AltNews and others when some national media took up these claims after Congress released manifesto.

"The Congress has promised to construct hospitals exclusively for minorities if voted to power in Telangana. Why only minorities? Are there no poor people among majority Hindus? What about their healthcare?" Shah said.

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The Congress manifesto says they will construct hospitals in minority concentrated areas, but they have not said that those hospitals are only for minorities. Moreover, there are promises of the hospitals in different strata including 100-bedded hospitals in each Assembly.

The BJP boss asked how Congress could waive the electricity bills of mosques and churches. "I have no problem with it," he clarified, "but why don't you give free power to temples too?"

The Congress manifesto clearly says, "Free power supply will be given to all temples, mosques, churches and other places of worships." More than that, it promises for establishing a proper system for fund releasing to repair places of worships and survey to protect their lands from encroachments.

"The Congress promises a large-scale recruitment of Urdu teacher, but hasn't made a single promise on recruiting Telugu teachers," Shah said.

By this claim, he is trying to single out Congress of giving more importance to Urdu than Telugu medium. In a way he is true, but there are mentions of conducting teacher's recruitments through District Selection Committee (DSC) by not specifying the medium of instructions.

Shah also targeted another one of Congress' "promises" that Rs 20 lakh will be given to minority students who want to pursue higher studies abroad: "Congress didn't say a word about poor OBC and SC students".

The manifesto of the grand old party has promises Rs 25 lakh assistance to students belonging to SC, ST, Minorities, OBC and other economically weaker section for pursuing overseas education. Apart from that, a special 20 lakh assistance to poor students in minority communities has also been promised.

He also slammed Chief Minister KCR's policy for 12% reservation for Muslims. "This sort of appeasement is what made AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi say whichever party comes to power in Telangana, it will have to be subservient to the MIM," the BJP chief said.

It shows BJP President with such claims trying to divide the attention of the electorate on religious basis. He is repeating these claims even after debunking shows a clear degradation of politics in order to gain some votes.

As always Congress, on other hands, promises doles, those are hard to fulfil. Parties should focus their election campaigns on socio-political and economic development rather than on religion and castes as well as unrealistic promises.