Modi condemns petty statements by BJP well-wishers

Worried that a series of controversial remarks by hardliners within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and in outfits close to it in recent days could derail the agenda of development and governance that he is trying to set, its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Tuesday urged the party’s well-wishers to refrain from making such “petty statements”.

“With great happiness, the entire nation is looking towards BJP for going to people solely on the issues of good governance & development,” he said in a post on micro-blogging site Twitter, half-way through the campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in India.

“Petty statements by those claiming to be BJP’s well wishers are deviating the campaign from the issues of development & good governance. I disapprove any such irresponsible statement & appeal to those making them to kindly refrain from doing so,” he said.

Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley also urged the party’s leaders not to deviate from the campaign theme.

“The momentum is with us. There is clarity in the campaign. The acceptability of the leader is extremely high. The groundswell seems to be building up not only in our traditional support areas but also in those regions where our strength is relatively marginal,” he wrote in his blog on Tuesday. “With the focus now on a BJP/NDA victory, the voters expect an extremely responsible response from us. We have fought this election on issues of governance. We must carry every section of society with us. People expect us to govern and deliver. Today, the flood lights are on us. We will now be increasingly put under public scrutiny.

“Even an isolated irresponsible statement will bring discredit to us. Every sensible well-wisher of the BJP is expected to exercise utmost restraint and concentrate on issue of governance, which is the theme of our campaign. Any statement to the contrary will only help our rivals,” he added.

Modi’s and Jaitley’s remarks came a day after the Congress urged the Election Commission to act promptly on an alleged hate speech by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) International Working President Pravin Togadia at Bhavnagar in Gujarat in which he reportedly targeted Muslims who bought properties in predominantly Hindu areas.

In its memorandum to the Election Commission, the Congress said the latest episode had come soon after the hate speech made by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Lok Sabha candidate Giriraj Singh at Bokaro in Jharkhand, in which he said last week that critics of its Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi had no place in India and must go to Pakistan. The BJP has since then distanced itself from Singh’s remarks, though he has reiterated his views. The Congress said that to describe Togadia’s statement as a hate speech in violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) would be too mild. “His statement is anti-national, provocative, inflammatory and open threat to persons belonging to a particular community. The intent and purpose of such a statement is well known when the election process is on i.e. to seek votes for BJP and Mr Narendra Modi with whom they share the same philosophy and ideology,” it said.

Meanwhile, Togadia has issued a legal notice to the newspapers and other media organisations which reported about his statement, saying that the reports were “misinformed” and “false, mala fide and mischievous”, and denying he had made the remarks attributed to him.

He said the reports were part of a “bigger conspiracy” to defame him and to put his life in danger. Togadia said that a group of about a thousand people had come to meet him and present a memorandum about how their houses were purchased “under force and duress by some people”.

“Hearing their plea, as a law abiding citizen, my client advised them to follow the legal process of writing to the local administration, the concerned state government & approach the court if they felt that they are being forced into any selling of their houses,” the notice sent by Togadia’s lawyer said.

“That my client also informed that there had been a ‘Disturbed Area Act’ existing in some places in Gujarat which was enacted by the earlier Government & that the said group may find out if the said act was applicable to them in the said matter.”

“That we wish to state here emphatically that there was nothing socially or legally wrong in the above advice given by my client to the said group as mentioned above,” it said. The Election Commission has sought a recording of the speech made by Togadia from the district authorities in Bhavnagar, and the district police is learnt to have begun inquiries into the incident.

But even as the controversy over these statements was still raging, the BJP has been further embarrassed by another speech, this time made by Ramdas Kadam, a local leader of the Shiv Sena, one of its allies, on Monday at an election meeting in Mumbai where Modi himself was present. Kadam used the speech to hit out at “Muslims” who allegedly vandalised police vehicles, damaged public property and attacked women police personnel during riots at Azad Maidan in August 2011 and said they would not be spared. He said Modi would take care of such elements once he came to power.

Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said it was reprehensible that Modi did not stop Kadam from making such remarks and, in fact, seemed to relish them. The Shiv Sena distanced itself from Kadam’s remarks, issuing a statement that they did not represent its views or those of its chief Uddhav Thackeray.

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