Union Home Minister Amit Shah declared the Supreme Court's dismissal of a plea challenging a Special Investigation Team (SIT) report giving a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Gujarat riots case, as "historic" and one that also "exposed the conspiracies" by "certain parties, journalists and NGOs" to malign the Prime Minister.
He said this while moving the political resolution at the BJP's national executive meet being held in Hyderabad over the weekend. The resolution was seconded by Karnataka and Assam Chief Ministers B.S. Bommai and Himanta Biswa Sarma.
It was Mr. Sarma who briefed the media on the resolution and said that Mr. Shah spoke about how "Prime Minister Modi had the poison in the manner of God Shiva and came out of the test shining like gold."
Mr. Shah, said Mr. Sharma, compared Mr. Modi's "respect for the Constitution in presenting himself before the SIT without a fuss" to the recent protests by Congress as the Enforcement Directorate questioned Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi.
‘Era of the BJP’
”He also said that dynastic politics, castesim and politics of appeasement were the greatest sins that were holding back the country and that it was BJP that was doing politics of performance and development, as demonstrated by the voting back of BJP governments at the recently held Assmbly polls in Goa, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Manipur,” said Mr. Sarma. In fact, this was the reponse of Mr. Sarma on every question put to him by the media on the killing of tailor Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur by two persons allegedly over an insult to Islam and also the Supreme Court’s obiter dicta against former party spokesperson Nupur Sharma. “At a platform like the BJP’s national executive, we were discussing macro issues, dynastic politics, casteism and appeasement politics as the greatest sins holding back India,” said Mr. Sarma. He quoted Mr. Shah as saying that the country was to be a “vishwa guru” soon and that the BJP was to be around for at least another 30-40 years and it would be the “Era of the BJP”.
Azamgarh bypoll and ‘Sab ka Saath’
On questions on whether Mr. Modi had made an intervention, asking that there must be an outreach towards the minority community, when BJP's Uttar Pradesh unit chief Swatantra Dev Singh was briefing the executive about the party's victory in the recently concluded bypolls in Samajwadi Party stronghold of Azamgarh, Mr. Sarma said that the "aim of all the policies and programmes of the Modi government was 'Sab ka Saath, Sab ka Vikas".
There were reports that Mr. Modi said that the results in Azamgarh, where there was a strong minority voter base, should get the party to anlayse what was the impact of the government's welfare policies among the deprived sections within the minority Muslim community. He felt that the BJP could connect with the marginalised sections of minority communities on the basis of development politics, rather than identity politics.
