Modi rakes up triple talaq issue, reaches out to minorities
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has raked up the sensitive triple talaq issue and tried to reach out to minorities, especially women. He said the number of Muslim girls getting enrolled in the schools and colleges had gone up significantly in UP over the past seven years.
Virendra Singh Rawat
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 14 raked up the sensitive triple talaq issue and tried to reach out to the minorities, especially women.
Addressing an election rally in Kanpur Dehat district, Modi said that earlier Muslim women had faced a perennial threat of the archaic custom if their parents failed to fulfil the dowry and other demands of the in-laws’ family.
“The lives of Muslim women were ruined on trivial issues. This put their fathers and mothers to untold misery. Now, we have given them the safety net against triple talaq. A report has claimed that the triple talaq law has protected the lives of thousands of Muslim girls,” he noted.
Modi said the number of Muslim girls getting enrolled in the schools and colleges had gone up significantly in Uttar Pradesh (UP) over the past seven years.
“During the earlier regime, the Muslim girls faced harassment at the hands of criminals and anti-social elements while on their way to schools. This has now changed and our government is constantly taking steps to improve their lives,” Modi claimed.
Interestingly, the second phase of UP assembly elections is being held on February 14 across 55 constituencies in nine districts, which have a sizeable population, about 30 per cent, of the minorities.
As such, Modi’s Muslim community outreach on the crucial polling day is being seen through the prism of wooing the minorities, especially women.
Meanwhile, he observed that two dynastic parties had always disregarded issues of women's safety and dignity, while the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had worked for their welfare without any discrimination.
“The flagship schemes of Jan Dhan and Mudra loans have largely benefited the women and women Self-Help Groups (SHGs),” he said, adding UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath was “upyogi” (valuable) for UP.
Hitting out at the Opposition, Modi alleged they had usurped food grains meant for the poor during their regimes. “Our government will not allow the poor to starve due to food-grain shortage. We have provided 3.4 million houses to the poor and thus made them lakhpati each since every house is worth more than a lakh of rupees.”
The PM asserted the BJP government had taken a slew of measures for the welfare of small farmers and to increase rural income, including PM-Kisan and Fasal Bima Yojana.
