Bhopal: Union minister Uma Bharati has advised Kanhaiya Kumar, Hardik Patel and “others of their ilk” to refrain from trying to win TRPs by attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Opposing Modi may get you TRPs, but it won’t help you win votes. Whosoever opposed Modi, had to bite the dust,” she said. Bharati was talking with newspersons here on Tuesday.
She said that Congress party vice-president Rahul Gandhi would have to shed his image as a non-serious and reluctant politician. She said that even she if wants to, she cannot take Rahul seriously. “It is not Modi, but his own image that is the biggest challenge for Rahul,” she said.
Playing a psephologist, Bharati said that the BJP will win 160 seats in Gujarat assembly elections. He said that the other political parties will be marginalised as had happened in Uttar Pradesh. She said that Modi’s opponents seem to firmly believe that Modi is responsible for everything that is happening in the country.
Answering a query, Bharati said that reservations were needed and should continue indefinitely. He said that in India, there is no discrimination in the name of religion though caste-based discrimination still persists. She claimed that the Ram Temple issue has already been resolved and now the only dispute is about the ownership of land. This issue can be settled out of the court too. She said that prohibition should be imposed in the entire country and added that when she was the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh in 2003, she had thought of imposing a blanket ban on liquor.
Gives good wishes to Diggi for Narmada Parikrama
Even as BJP leaders are describing the Narmada Parikrama of former chief minister Digvijay Singh as a ‘sham’, Bharati said that Singh’s family is deeply religious and his Narmada Parikrama is non-political. “If I am invited to the Bhandara at the end of the Yatra, I will definitely attend it,” she said and added Digvijay Singh is like her elder brother and she wants to extend good wishes to ‘bhaiya and bhabhi’ for the Yatra.
With Shivraj on issue of roads
Bharati backed Shivraj’s statement that MP has better roads than Washington. She said that India is ahead of the US in many areas. “The US does not have anything that can match the Rameshwaram temple, the caves of Ajanta-Ellora and the Ganga. Bhopal’s VIP road is world-class,” she remarked. Bharati said that we would have to shed the mentality that everything in the west is better than in India.
