Gearing up for the 2019 general elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a direct attack on Congress on Saturday asking if the chief opposition party belonged only to the Muslims, particularly the community’s men.

PM Modi said, “If Congress is a party meant for Muslims, it’s up to them. But is it a party meant only for Muslim men? Because you don't stand with the Muslim women on issues such as triple talaq and nikah halala.”

PM Modi was speaking at an event in Azamgarh to lay the foundation stone of the Purvanchal Expressway. Azamgarh has a significant number of Muslim voters, who will prove to be a crucial vote bank in the Parliamentary elections where Uttar Pradesh has the highest representation in the House.

A day earlier, Union minister Nirmala Sitharaman, too, had attacked the party on similar lines saying the Congress would have to be blamed for any communal tension in the run-up to the elections. The defence minister referred to a newspaper article about Congress chief Rahul Gandhi allegedly saying Congress was a Muslim party and said that the Congress is playing a dangerous game and such efforts at dividing the country on communal lines was last seen in 1947.
 

Keeping up his attack on the opposition, Modi further took a shot at BSP and SP as well. He said, “The new projects of development are meant for all but it’s unfortunate that some parties who claim to believe and follow Ambedkar and talk about social justice, have always ignored eastern UP.”

“Such parties have benefited and worked for themselves and their family members. Dalits and backwards were used by these parties only for political purposes. Those who won elections after being backed by Dalit and backward votes, only got richer.”

PM Modi even charged at BSP and SP’s newfound love for each other after decades of bitter rivalry. Modi said, “Those who never saw each other eye-to-eye, have now come together and they have nothing else on agenda but to target Modi.”

“The opposition is afraid if people grow, poverty is eliminated, then their politics will seize to exist,” the prime minister added.

Hours before PM Modi was to lay the foundation stone for the Purvanchal Expressway, former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav sought to take the wind out of his sails by claiming it was the SP government's project which was being relaunched by the BJP government on Saturday.