M Chuba Ao
BJP National Vice President
Most of your attention must have been drawn to a special election-related interview given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a leading Hindi TV news channel.
I was really touched and also felt a bit excited when our respected leader Shri Modi ji said, “Main Kyun Nahin Ja Sakta, Woh (Lahore in Pakistan) Mera Desh Tha Kisi Zamaane Mein (Why can’t I go to Lahore, Pakistan was part of my country at one time)”.
Is it not a significant statement? What is more noteworthy is perhaps because no one expected a Prime Minister in office to make such a statement. The statement as such is a matter of fact and showed once again that our Prime Minister can call ‘spade a spade’.
This is election season in India and people are talking about so-called ‘poorer turnout’ as compared to 2019. One reason is intense heatwave that blew is most parts of India especially states such as Rajasthan and Bihar.
Of course, ‘poor turnout’ in voting has a few other stories from the pages of modern history that ought to be shared here.
Sialkot – a key commercial and industrial township – of grand united India or Aakhand Bharat – is today in Pakistan. There is a gory chapter vis-a-vis Hindus of Sialkot.
On the eve of Partition, during the voting to decide about which side of borders (in two new nations India or Pakistan), Sialkot would fall — sadly, Hindus did not take part in the voting with much enthusiasm.
Sialkot was a Hindu-majority place and Muslims participated in the voting much enthusiastically.
Hindus took it lightly. I am not a Hindu myself but compared to Muslims; I know of my personal Hindu friends and associates who are lazy and take these matters very casually. Hence, the Hindu-majority Sialkot was lost.
To tell the truth as a BJP karyakarta, I feel the pain when I write these lines today in circa 2024.
In 2017, Sialkot showed Hindu population at mere 500. In 1951 – the Hindu population nosedived to modest 10,000, claim certain reports Just in five-six years the decline in Hindu population was so sharp. In 1946, Hindu population in Sialkot was 2.31 lakh .
Over 1 lakh Hindus did not vote and by 55,000 Muslims had the larger say and Sialkot became part of Pakistan. How painful and paradoxical?
Such things have been reported from certain pockets in now Bangladesh – like Sylhet also. Here too, Hindus were in large numbers and they were stunned to see that their beloved land has been handed’ over to Pakistan. The other name for such ‘generosity’ can be called minority appeasement.
And in 2024 our Prime Minister is right when he says the Congress party has displayed their pro-Muslim League stance. We are not being ant-Christian or anti-Muslim. The point we are laying emphasis here is how the Congress and Left parties have used and abused Muslim community and reduced them as mere vote getting machines.
On the other hand, the Prime Minister Modi ji has laid out the vision of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas. Imagine the state of India, that is Bharat, if long back in the early fifties someone had given this slogan as a national mission.
The politics of Hindu-Muslim could not have thrived in India nor there would have been a dirty polity of caste divisions. The Congress party will be shown their place on June 4th.
We all are confident and so are national and international observers of repute that the BJP will return to power for a third term under Shri Modi ji.
The NDA government has eliminated extreme poverty in India and learned scholars like Surjit Bhalla rightly say: “I don’t think there’s ever been a period of economic growth of the Indian economy which was as robust as it is today”.
As a BJP Karyakarta, finally I can assert, we are eyeing towards a staggering win that will be convincing. We have set a practical target of 400 seats for BJP and NDA partners put together. This is not a pipe-dream.
But voters ought to do their part and exercise their solemn right in the greatest festival of democracy.
(Views are personal)
