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Muslims are too secular,' says AAP's Shazia Ilmi in video

New Delhi: In a video posted on YouTube,Shazia Ilmi, a top leader of Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), is seen urging Muslim leaders, "I'm saying Muslims are very secular. Muslims need to be communal. A Muslim isn't communal - doesn't vote for his own. Arvind Kejriwal is one of you. You are too ...don't be this secular. Look after your own homes (interests)." NDTV cannot verify the authenticity of the video.

On its Twitter account, Ms Ilmi's party clarified, "AAP does not believe in this kind of politics nor does it endorse it."

Ms Ilmi told NDTV that her comments were "a play of words." She said, "I was making fun of this word 'secularism' which is used all the time. I said Muslims never think of themselves, they have become political slaves to a party."

The BJP now plans to complain against Ms Ilmi's remarks to the Election Commission. "Shazia Ilmi must give an explanation," said BJP spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

In recent weeks, the national election has seen politicians using religion to court voters and making remarks designed to polarize votes, with the powerful Election Commission reacting swiftly. Azam Khan, a minister in Uttar Pradesh, has been banned from campaigning after a hate speech. Similar action was taken against the BJP's Amit Shah; after an assurance that he would not make hate comments, the ban on him was lifted last week.

Another BJP leader, Giriraj Singh, has been told today he cannot campaign in Bihar and Jharkhand for stating recently that critics of Narendra Modi will have to go to Pakistan after the BJP is elected. (Read more...)

This morning, Mr Modi, the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, condemned anti-Muslim remarks made by hardliner colleagues. "Petty statements by those claiming to be BJP's well wishers are deviating the campaign from the issues of development & good governance," Mr Modi tweeted. (No irresponsible remarks please, says Modi after Togadia controversy)

In a video that surfaced yesterday, Pravin Togadia, a top leader of of the right-wing Hindu Vishwa Parishad or VHP, was seen offering advice on how to prevent Muslims from buying property in Hindus-dominated areas of Gujarat.

'Muslims are too secular,' says AAP's Shazia Ilmi in video | NDTV.com
 
Bang on analysis of St. Xaviers' pricipal's mail:coffee:
Xavier's principal could have simply said 'Don't vote for Modi' | Firstpost

If there is one thing that the message sent by the principal of Mumbai’s St Xavier’s College to students proves, it is this: in this election, almost no one is really non-partisan. Plus, if you want to send a political message when you shouldn’t, it is possible to couch it in all kinds of high-sounding ideas and still get your message across.
The message Principal Frazer Mascarenhas wanted to send his students, and the world at large, was simple: don’t vote for Narendra Modi. Since he did not want to do this directly, he chose to send it indirectly. He used the ruse of a discussion on the Gujarat model and human development indicators and the Food Security Act to tell his students whom to vote for.
If he had used the occasion to even discuss the Gujarat model threadbare, he would have done some good. But he didn’t, for a genuine discussion would call for looking at both the good points and the bad points of the Gujarat model in some detail. Even if his chosen focus was to be on human development indicators – where, Gujarat admittedly, lags – he could have been more even-handed. But that was obviously not his purpose.

Mascarenhas chose to frame the discussion around what he calls two views that have come up in “stark” contrast, but effectively runs away from really discussing these views. He posits the growth of big business against the quality of life of the majority – as though these are either/or options. This is the way he frames the debate in his email to students, and which is also on the college’s website (read here). “Is the growth of big business, the making of huge profits, the achievement of high production – what we seek? Or is it the quality of life for the majority in terms of affordable basic goods and services and the freedom to take forward the cultural aspirations of our plural social groups that make up India?”
If Dr Mascarenhas had been listening to Modi’s speeches recently, he has not talked one word about corporate interests – only development for the masses, the poor farmer, the poor worker. But that doesn’t serve the principal’s purpose.
Moreover, is Mascarenhas under the impression that the 2G, Coalgate, Commonwealth and Adarsh Society scams are about meeting the aspirations of the majority? Sure, he may have had the Adani-Ambani issues raised by the Aam Aadmi Party in mind when he wrote this, but surely no party or state leadership has really been free from connections to big business – either for election funding or to seek investments?
Every state seeks big investments, and these require the wooing of big business to create jobs. If Adani and Ambani have done so in Gujarat, so have GVK and GMR in Andhra Pradesh, various steel companies in Odisha, etc. Which world is the principal living in?
Or is the Good Principal under the illusion that inflation, lack of jobs and slow growth are somehow irrelevant to the toiling masses? This is exactly what happened under UPA. Gujarat, in contrast, has among the lowest unemployment rates in the country (read here and here), but this is not apparently an important plus for the Gujarat model.
Then, Mascarenhas takes more direct potshots at the Gujarat model – which is the code he wants his students to understand. He makes a sweeping statement condemning Gujarat’s performance in human indicators, saying the state’s “Human Development Index indicators and the cultural polarisation of the population show that Gujarat has had a terrible experience in the last 10 years.”
Gujarat had a terrible experience in its riots of 2002. Since then it has largely focused on development – and minorities have been a part of this growth story. Social polarisation is a reality in the state, but so is it in many other states.
Sure, Gujarat needs to improve its social indicators, but Mascarenhas fails to consider any counter-view. He could have read this article, or this one, where the author suggests that Gujarat’s growth has been more inclusive than you think. Surely, the head of an educational institution is not supposed to have blinkered, one-sided views. This is what stands out in “stark” contrast.
Then, the email suddenly gets into a private gripe. After saying higher education has “not been allowed to move forward” in Gujarat, Mascarenhas brings up his own private complaint: “St. Xavier’s College, Ahmedabad, thrice NAAC-accredited with an equivalent of the A grade, has not been able to gain permission from the Gujarat Government for academic autonomy, for the last 10 years and has finally won a battle in the high court to approach the UGC directly for this status.”
There’s no better example of using a private grouse to tell people to vote against someone.
After giving his convoluted reasons for why you shouldn’t vote for Modi, Mascarenhas then comes to the point on who you could vote for. Again in obvious code.
He writes: “As opposed to this (ie, Gujarat model, etc), efforts like the Rojgar Yojana and the Food Security Act have been called ‘election sops’. However some of our best social scientists like Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze have supported these as necessary in the emergency economic situation the country and the world is facing.”
Surely, Mascarenhas knows that the Food Security Bill was passed with the support of the BJP? Modi has not said one word against it. Chhattisgarh, a BJP-ruled state, is even said to have a good food security apparatus, and it was lauded by the same Jean Dreze.
But when you talk about what Amartya Sen’s views are on food security, does it not make sense to discuss counter-views, those of Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya?
Mascarenhas comes to the conclusion that “those who support big business and its unethical profits will never agree to such public expenditure for the masses” – expenditure in education and health. But the BJP manifesto specifically talks of huge investments in education and health. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan was started by the NDA – and taken forward by the UPA.
The Xavier’s College principal then makes it clear who he is actually targeting: “The prospect of an alliance of corporate capital and communal forces coming to power constitutes a real threat to the future of our secular democracy.”
Since “communal” is short-hand for BJP/Modi in our public discourse, it is clear what Mascarenhas is talking about. The truth is, if Mascarenhas really had his eyes open, the “alliance of corporate forces and communal forces” can be spotted in other political combos too – the Congress and its alliance with minority-based parties in centre and states, the regional players in various ways.
Wouldn’t it have been more honest of Dr Mascarenhas to say simply: Don’t vote for Modi? Why go through the rigmarole of discussing the Gujarat model and the food security act? As a citizen of a free country, he can speak his mind. No need to beat round the bush.
 
all who have vested interest in any form of religion seems to oppose development and thinking and acting common man at large
 
LOL.....AT THE NATIONAL DEBATE we are having currently...................

It's the election for LS, since 10 years it was Congress led UPA that was in Power & instead of scrutinizing what it did in 10 years, we are picking straws from what Modi has done in Gujarat from past 13 years.
 
Why the Gandhis get votes in Amethi

Amethi, the constituency that has elected members of the Gandhi family since 1980 - first Sanjay Gandhi, then brother Rajiv, followed by Rajiv's widow, Sonia, and now son Rahul, the Congress party's vice-president who is seeking re-election - is crumbling, quite literally. There is a decaying stench that overpowers Amethi, with roads leading up to the district dotted with closed factories that were set up during the time of Rajiv Gandhi.

Companies such as Malvika Steel and SAIL invested in the district once upon a time, but what remains today are crumbling structures, scraps of which in the form of iron are sold by the unemployed of Amethi for drugs. Unemployment, lack of basic facilities-there is no government hospital in Amethi- electricity for only a few hours a day, potholed roads, and abysmally poor schools tell a familiar story of 'Bharat' or other parts of rural India. In fact, Amethi would rank lower in development indicators that its counterparts in other states.
Uttar Pradesh lags painfully behind the other large 15 states in the country on a majority of development parameters. But Amethi has been electing the most powerful leaders of India, so what can possibly stop them from developing their constituency?

Rahul Gandhi, in an interview to Headlines Today, said that lack of cooperation from the state government has kept the constituency under-developed. But isn't Samajwadi Party an alliance of the ruling Congress? Yes, it is. The economics of it apart, the travesty is the politics of adulation and hope that the Gandhis have scripted with near precision in this constituency.

What jumps out in this super-star constituency is this overwhelming sense of low self worth among the residents of Amethi and psychological impact of poor development on individuals' aspirations. There are generations of families in Amethi who will vouch their support for the Gandhis. When questioned on their lack of access to basic facilities, they retort with a story or two on a hand pump gifted by the Gandhis back in the day or on a family being able to send their child abroad with the support of the Gandhis. "What will I do with roads? I spend most of my day in the farm," says a frail farmer Ram Prasad. All of 55, Prasad owns less than an acre of land and has voted for Congress nearly all his life. He has two sons, graduates but unemployed. Who will he vote for this time? "Whoever waives my farm loan," says Prasad, who has a farm loan of about Rs 6,000 to Rs 7,000.

As the BJP's Smriti Irani and the Aam Aadmi Party's Kumar Vishwas rake up the development agenda in a constituency that has mostly voted for "Rajiv's son and Rajiv's wife", they are also aware that it is the youth they can influence. Anybody over 45 is an ardent Gandhi supporter.

Education and access fuel the mind, and that has been-perhaps strategically-kept off-bounds in Amethi. The Gandhi aura continues to enamor because the residents of Amethi don't want answers. They have never asked questions and because they don't know any better, they have never felt the need to. Yes, the Gandhis have managed to get several big-ticket educational projects sanctioned from the central government including institutes for information technology, hotel management and footwear design. Again, these projects have not yielded the desired results. There is a gaping disconnect between the need of Amethi and proposed investment projects - most of these projects, if implemented, will generate employment for others and not for the residents of Amethi. The projects don't capitalize on the strengths of Amethi and its manpower, the announced projects almost appear as showpiece announcements of the Gandhis to silence the critics.

Arjun Yadav is another Congress supporter. He moved to Lucknow from Amethi for lack of opportunities and access to good education for his children, yet he remains adamant in his support for Gandhi. "You tell me, won't you vote for someone who can help send your children abroad? Tomorrow all of Amethi will be out to welcome its prince with roses (refers to Rahul Gandhi coming to file his nomination). You will not get to see an inch of this broken road - when Rajivji left us, he gave us his son's responsibility."
Another woman from Veerganj village was wary of sharing her name with Business Today as she said "We see him once every five years."

So, what gets the Gandhis the votes? India is feudal at heart and brain, and Amethi residents have been encouraged to remain that way. The 'mai-baap', 'raja-praja' politics thrive in the area. Lack of education has kept them away from thinking independently and demand answers, the power brokers of the district are old-time Gandhi loyalists and in rural areas it is the mukhiya, or the village head, who usually dictates who gets the votes.

The discourse is changing in Amethi. Irani and Vishwas are talking jobs and development, but the big question is whether the people of Amethi are ready for a new kind of politics?

Away from the politics of worship and adulation, will they choose a leader who pitches himself as one of them or a leader who speaks about developing the district like Gujarat? But, wait, development means different things to different people. For a voter in America, development could mean a city that's connected through WiFi, for a Bangalore voter development could mean a better garbage disposal system, for a Delhi voter development means better safety for women, but for the voter in Amethi development still is a farm loan waiver.
 
arp2041 said:
LOL.....AT THE NATIONAL DEBATE we are having currently...................

It's the election for LS, since 10 years it was Congress led UPA that was in Power & instead of scrutinizing what it did in 10 years, we are picking straws from what Modi has done in Gujarat from past 13 years.
Click to expand...
Paid media managed to shift the agenda completely from development politics to communal politics. No one is taking about economy, development, growth, unemployment.. & everyone is harping about secularism, communalism, Gujarat '02, Hindu, Mulsim.. & all that c$@p. This is only 'cause incumbent has nothing to show for it's 10 yr tenure..& it's sad that instead of highlighting the relevant issues, media is focusing in irrelevant stuff. Then again.. people in India have made their mind up. Congressis & their paid media.. kuch bhi karlo yaar.. ab ki bar Modi sarkar!

Jason bourne said:
(
https://twitter.com/x/status/458920525591367682
)


(
https://twitter.com/x/status/458919482967080960
)

(
https://twitter.com/x/status/458919667529035776
)
Click to expand...
just goes to show how screwed up is this Kejriwal. Arnab is running a blatant congress agenda off late.. & Kujli is asking Arnab how much did Modi pay to run Congress agenda. Looks like this man is suffering from ModiPhobia! :woot:
 
Indischer said:
I couldn't get what's wrong with this pic.:undecided:

@JanjaWeed Even a blind guy could see who Arnab's been supporting of late. Kejri might not have realised it yet, but he's turned into exactly the sort of people he set out to remove from Politics in the first place.:tsk:
Click to expand...
Just goes to show who's agenda Kejriwal is running too. Sounds like this political campaign has taken it's toll on him.. & turned him blind in one eye!
 

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