New Delhi: Taking a dig at jailed rival Arvind Kejriwal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed hope in an interview with the Times of India that the former’s arrest – the first of a sitting chief minister in India – would not become a “precedent”.
Modi said he felt that “other politicians won’t be so lacking in morals and will not go to this extent,” while responding to a question about whether the sitting Delhi CM being in jail would become a precedent given that it was against convention even though the law was silent on this.
Kejriwal, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener, was arrested on 21 March for alleged money laundering in a case tied to the Delhi government’s now-withdrawn liquor policy of 2021-22. He is currently lodged in Tihar jail.
“I think it is the media’s responsibility to show the people the full perspective on this issue, how people of Delhi are suffering, and what the courts have said about the case. I am optimistic that this will not become a precedent,” Modi said in the interview.
He dismissed the common refrain of opposition parties that the central government misused investigating agencies, especially the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), to target political rivals. Responding to the allegation that “tainted” politicians turn “clean” as soon as they join the BJP, Modi asked the media to research these claims.
“Instead of introspecting why its functionaries are leaving in hordes, Congress is making such excuses. There are many politicians with no ED or CBI cases against them who have left Congress and joined us. The fact is that just a small fraction of the agencies’ cases are related to political figures. Of the corruption cases probed by the ED, only 3 percent involve politicians. The remaining 97 percent are linked to officials and criminals. Action is being taken against them too,” the PM said.
Citing data from the last 11 years, he said that only about 1 to 1.5 percent of cases involved politicians out of the 10,622 preliminary inquiries and regular cases being investigated by the CBI.
Modi claimed this debunked the claim of a politically-motivated modus operandi. “Another interesting fact is that before 2014, the ED attached assets worth only Rs 5,000 crore, whereas in the last 10 years that amount has increased to more than Rs 1 lakh crore. Most importantly, no ongoing investigation has been closed simply because the person involved has joined a particular party. Corruption is a serious problem, and we’re dealing with it seriously. We have come a long way in our battle against corruption in the last 10 years and are now at an inflection point,” he said.
“Look at what has happened in Karnataka, bomb blasts, brutal murder of a daughter, attack on people doing bhajan-kirtan,” he said, alleging that the Karnataka government “tried its best to mislead people” on the Rameshwaram Cafe blast.
“In the murder of the daughter, the media is showing how the father is going around asking for justice. He is from the Congress party, but still, he is not getting justice. If this is not appeasement, what is it? It is not polarisation to show that Congress has violated the Constitution and enacted laws providing reservation on the basis of religion,” he said.
Modi pointed out that while the Constitution prohibits reservations based on religion, “the Congress government in Karnataka reversed the law passed by BJP to provide reservation to OBCs and gave it to Muslims, classifying all Muslims as OBC”.
He added that the Congress government in Telangana also planned to replicate the move. “This proves that Congress wants to reduce the reservation provided to SCs, STs and OBCs across the country and give it to minorities. What else can one expect from a party whose prime minister said that minorities have the first right on resources of this country?” he asked.
Reiterating the party’s promises in the 2024 manifesto, the Prime Minister said the BJP would ensure the implementation of “one nation, one poll” and the Uniform Civil Code.
“For the longest time, governments have been driven by electoral considerations rather than national considerations. Every year, there would be some or other election taking place and the priority would always be to win the next election, even if it meant trading off the long-term interests of the people of India.
“It is a matter of concern for us. One nation, one poll is going to ensure that as a nation, our time, effort and resources get invested more productively towards nation-building… In our third term, one will see concrete steps being taken on the matter,” he said.
Stressing that UCC was one of their “core agendas”, Modi said BJP governments in states were mulling its implementation. “Uttarakhand has become the first state to implement UCC. It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society. We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of constitutional norms while another community is stuck in a time warp due to appeasement. We will do everything in our capacity to make the Uniform Civil Code a reality in India,” he said.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
Also read: 3 counts on which Kejriwal’s arrest has become a turning point in Indian politics