Cats, dogs, snakes uniting to face Modi: Amit Shah mocks Oppn's anti-BJP front
Mumbai: BJP president Amit Shah on Friday derided opposition unity moves as the motley group of animals during a flood. Hours later, responding to some angry reactions from rivals, he clarified that he was "only talking in the context of ideologies".
Addressing BJP workers in Mumbai to mark the party's founding day, Amit Shah said, "A mongoose, a cat, a dog, a cheetah and lion, they are coming together because they see water rising below them. So they are all in one boat."
Fearing the 'Modi flood', Shah sneered, "a snake, a mongoose, a dog and a cat have come together to fight elections."
At a press conference in the evening on Friday, the BJP president said, "I apologise if anyone felt bad, but I was only talking in the context of ideologies."
He continued, "I want to tell the Congress, BSP and all other opposition parties. Those assembled together do not match in ideologies but they have come together only because they are afraid of PM Modi."
The Congress said it was the BJP's "arrogance" speaking, "In our culture, a man and his character are known by the phraseology he depicts and states, manner in which Amit Shah used abusive language, calling entire opposition animals & names, reflects that it is language of a leader who's lost the battle even before it started," Randeep Surjewala.
The BJP is still smarting from its defeat in two Uttar Pradesh strongholds - Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's Gorakhpur and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya's Phoolpur - where the Samajwadi Party joined forces with its bitter rival Mayawati in an arrangement that included Samajwadi's support to BSP in the Rajya Sabha polls.
National Conference leader Omar Abdullah took a dig at the BJP president on Twitter. "Did the BJP President liken the Hon PM to a natural disaster?" he posted.
Addressing BJP Foundation Day in Mumbai, Amit Shah said the Modi government will neither scrap the reservation policy nor allow anyone else to do so, BJP president Amit Shah asserted in Mumbai on Friday, amid a raging controversy related to the alleged dilution of the SC/ST Act following a Supreme Court ruling.
He also accused the Opposition of not allowing the Budget session of Parliament to function. The session concluded on Friday. During his speech, he insisted that the Modi government had done a lot for all sections of the society and that the BJP will seek to win the 2019 Lok Sabha polls on the basis of work done rather than by making "hollow assurances".
"Rahul Gandhi and others are saying that we are demolishing reservation for SCs and STs. We are in no way demolishing the reservation (policy)," Shah said in his address on the occasion of the BJP's 38th foundation day. He went on to add, "Rahul and (NCP chief Sharad) Pawar, listen. BJP will never end the reservation policy. And even if you want to end the reservation, BJP will never allow it."
The BJP president's remarks came in the backdrop of the recent controversy and agitation after a Supreme Court ruling regarding the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which is seen by many as dilution of the law.
