Lalu tried to save those behind Godhra train arson: PM at rally

PATNA: PM Modi on Saturday raked up the Godhra train fire tragedy of 2002 as he accused Congress & RJD of practising Muslim appeasement.

In a multi-pronged attack on INDIA bloc at a rally in Darbhanga, Modi accused RJD chief Lalu Prasad of having tried to “save” those responsible for the Godhra train burning in 2002 in which 59 kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya were burnt alive. “Lalu, then railway minister in UPA govt, had constituted the Justice UC Banerjee committee, which in its report in 2005 had given a clean chit to the accused and termed the blaze an accident. However, the court trashed the report and punished the guilty,” Modi said.

He accused Congress and RJD of favouring the main minority community by trying to dilute OBC, SC & ST quotas. “Opposition parties are trying to distort Constitution framed by BR Ambedkar and others. Ambedkar and even Nehru were against the idea of religion-based reservation,” he said.

In a counter-attack on the INDIA bloc’s charge that Modi would end reservations for backward people, change the Constitution and finish democracy in the country, the PM said he gets inspiration from Karpoori Thakur – the former CM who was posthumously conferred Bharat Ratna by the Modi govt recently.

“They can’t play with the quota for OBCs and SC/STs until Modi is alive. They have lost their mental balance since I unmasked their faces. They are silent on my question 12 days ago if they will give in writing not to snatch the quota from OBCs, SCs and STs,” the PM said.

Modi claimed that when “he (Lalu) was railway minister, he had asked officials in 2007 to manage reservation in jobs for Muslims from OBC/SC/ST quota”. “It’s like committing dacoity on the rights of Yadavs, Kurmis, Paswan, Musahar and Dhanuk communities,” he said.

Without naming Lalu’s son and former Bihar deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav, Modi attacked him. He called Tejashwi the “shehzada of Patna”, like the one in Delhi (Rahul Gandhi). He said one treats the country and the other Bihar “as their fiefdom since childhood” and both have the “same report card of scams “.

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