Shashi Tharoor Slams PM Modi

New Delhi: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his remark alleging that Congress would distribute wealth among Muslims’, calling it a “nakedly communal appeal”. According to Tharoor, who is contesting the Lok Sabah election from Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram seat, “any civilised” Election Commission would disallow and warn the candidate for speaking such statements

“This is a very disgraceful speech made by the Prime Minister. The fact is that people realise that when he says that the Congress party is going to take all your wealth and give it to the Muslims, this is just a nakedly communal appeal. It is simply not decent,” Tharoor told news agency ANI.

Stating that he was “truly disappointed” by PM Modi’s speech, Tharoor said, “The Congress party is constantly accused by Mr Modi of having ruled the country for 65 years. Have we taken away people’s wealth and given it to the Muslim community? How can the Prime Minister talk like this?”

Addressing an election rally in Rajasthan on Sunday, PM Modi said that the Congress has plans to redistribute gold and hard-earned money to “infiltrators” and “those who have more children”. He went on to ask the crowd if they think it is “acceptable” for the grand old party to “take their hard-earned property”.

“The Congress manifesto says it will calculate the gold with mothers and sisters, get information about it, and then distribute that property. They will distribute it to whom – Manmohan Singh’s government had said that Muslims have the first right on the country’s assets,” Modi said.

He added, “Earlier when their (Congress) government was in power, it had said that Muslims have the first right to the country’s assets. This means to whom will this property be distributed? It will be distributed among those who have more children…It will be distributed to the infiltrators.”

However, the Congress claimed that its manifesto does not talk about any “redistribution”, adding that it favours a “comprehensive socio-economic caste census”.