Modi promises equal rights to Pakistani Hindu refugees

BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi addressing a rally in Barmer on Saturday.

The BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, Narendara Modi, has said that Pakistani Hindu refugees will be treated like other Indian citizens.

In his maiden mass-contact meeting in the high-stakes Barmer constituency on Saturday, he said: “When some Bangladeshis infiltrate, the contractors of vote-bank politics lap them up, break all rules ... but those refugees from Pakistan who come here only for saying Bharat Mata ki Jai ... nobody cares about them. Shouldn’t they get rights? Shouldn’t they get the love of Mother India? It will be the responsibility of the government in Delhi to end the injustice being done to you all these years.”

Mr. Modi targeted Congress president Sonia Gandhi for leaving “no stone unturned” to send him to prison.

“Over the past 10 years, Madam Sonia

ji , your regime wasted no opportunity to try and send Modi to jail by filing cases in every court of this country, but what did you get? Did you manage to get Modi out of the people’s hearts. I have come out unscathed,” he said.

“But I want to tell friends in the Congress that the lotus has bloomed here in Barmer and the more muck you splash the more the lotus will bloom.”

“Usually in elections, all parties come together to throw the ruling party out, but this is the first election where the ruling party is calling everyone to come together. Why? To stop Modi anyhow ... Because they know very well what place they will be in once Modi comes,” he said.

Steering clear of any criticism of the party’s rebel candidate, Jaswant Singh, in Barmer, he dared Ms. Gandhi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to come clean on the bank account details of the former Punjab Chief Minister and Congress candidate from Amritsar, Amarinder Singh.

“In Amritsar, a serious complaint has been lodged with the Election Commission that in his affidavit, Amarinder Singh has not given his bank account details. The complaint wants to know if he, his son or his wife has any accounts in banks in Geneva,” Mr. Modi said.