'Lower turnout not a worry, we’ll get more seats than last time': Amit Shah
‘Lower turnout not a worry, we’ll get more seats than last time’: Amit Shah
On the campaign trail, Union home minister Amit Shah gave an exclusive interview to Times Now in a helicopter. Excerpts:
A few days back, a big operation took place in which 29 Maoists were killed. You have said that in the coming 3-4 years, Naxalism will be eliminated?
We have entirely eliminated Naxalism in Jharkhand, Bihar, Telangana, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Four cities in Chhattisgarh were left since the previous Congress govt never supported the Centre. BJP returned to office, and within four months 90 Naxals were apprehended, 123 were arrested, and 250 surrendered themselves. Ten more Naxals were killed only yesterday, and Maoists from Chhattisgarh surrendered in Odisha at 9am today. Along with security, we are increasing and delivering education, health, food, energy, and communication. I would like to urge individuals to lay down their weapons and surrender and get included in the mainstream.
EC has released polling data for the two phases after a delay. The opposition has been saying that EVMs will be manipulated?
If you had contested elections, you would not have said this. The machine is sealed from all polling agents. It can’t be tampered with. They are just looking for excuses.
People will ask how do you know how many seats you will get?
Then how did Rahul Gandhi know that we will get 150 seats? Has Rahul tampered with the EVM? Those who work on ground have their assessments. It’s just that our assessments are mostly accurate.
Till now Congress has not declared the candidate for Amethi and Raebareli…but why is BJP not announcing the candidate for Raebareli?
In Raebareli, we have decided that after their candidate is announced, we will do it. We have 3 candidates. As soon as they make their announcement, we will do it. They are finding a candidate who is ready to lose.
This time, on one side there was talk of mangalsutra and infiltrators and on the other side there was talk of vote jihad. Who do you think is doing such a polarising election?
What issue you raise is your call, but this time election is on giving house to 3 crore poor people, insurance worth Rs 5 lakh to those who have lived more than 70 years, free foodgrains to the poor for the next 5 years. There is a need to make India the third largest economy, there is ‘one nation, one election’ and there is also a need to introduce uniform civil code in the country. But the media doesn’t like this creative agenda, so it picks up things with controversy.
No one can divide this country; BJP has become very strong and whoever tries to divide the country will get a strong answer. This is not Indira Gandhi’s era but Narendra Modi’s time. Modi ji has freed us from all four diseases – dynastic politics, casteism, corruption and appeasement.
Today Mallikarjun Kharge has said his candidate is Shiva and there will be a fight between Shiva and Ram. What do you think?
The Election Commission should take cognizance of this matter.
The opposition says if you come for a third time, there will be one nation but no election. How many seats do you give Congress in this election?
When Indira Gandhi came then Emergency was implemented but BJP has no intention of ‘One Nation, No Election’. We don’t know about Congress, but we are crossing 400 seats in this Lok Sabha.
How many seats after the second phase of election?
We are getting more than 100 Lok Sabha seats.
The turnout reduced after the first phase, which means BJP’s support and cadre has reduced?
Congress does not know the ground reality. Congress supporters have not come out to vote.
Don’t you think there is any problem in the first two phases, especially in UP and Rajasthan?
According to me we will get more Lok Sabha seats this time than in the previous election.
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