Was Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Communal? Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tears Into Opposition Over CAA Protests

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday attacked the Opposition over the ongoing protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act saying that the Congress and the Left were misleading the people. During his reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address in his nearly two-hour-long speech in the Lok Sabha, PM Modi said that even India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was in favour of protecting minorities in Pakistan. “I want to ask Congress, was Pandit Nehru communal,” PM Modi said as he tore into the Opposition’s stand against the CAA. He also categorically said that nobody needs to be afraid of the CAA. "I want to clearly state - with the CAA coming, there will be no impact on any citizen of India, practising any faith," PM Modi said in the Lok Sabha. (TOP QUOTES)

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The Prime Minister also defended the abrogation of the Article 370 that granted special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. Talking about the Nehru-Liaqat pact, PM Modi said that the Congress was just pretending to protect the Constitution and never cared about the rules. "If law is not conducive to give citizenship to give Hindu and other minority refuges from Pakistan then we must change the law". Talking about the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley, PM Modi said that Kashmir's identity was buried on January 19, 1990, when Kashmiri Pandits started leaving the Valley due to militancy. "Who made Kashmir only about land grabbing? Who made Kashmir's identity only about bombs and guns? Can anyone forget that dark night of January? In reality, Kashmiri identity is closely linked with harmony," he said.

In his scathing attack, PM Modi also reminded the Congress about the 1984 Sikh riots. “Does a party that keeps talking about secularism not remember 1984 and the anti-Sikh violence. It was shameful. In addition, they did not make efforts to punish the guilty. A person who was associated with the violence has been rewarded as Chief Minister of a state by them,” PM Modi said. 

Amid the tension over the economic slowdown and lukewarm response to the Union Budget, PM Modi said, “Our vision is: Greater investment. Better infrastructure. Increased value addition. Maximum job creation.” “We have kept the fiscal deficit in check. Price rise is also under check and there is macro-economic stability. Investor confidence should increase, the country's economy should be strengthened, for this we have also taken several steps,” the Prime Minister said to showcase his government’s policies on reviving the Indian economy.