"Muslims Also Understand Congress, INDI Bloc Have Made Them Pawns" PM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said Muslims now understand that the Congress and INDIA bloc are using them as pawns, asserting that the community is distancing itself from them after seeing the development carried out by the BJP.

Addressing a rally in support of BJP candidate Rekha Verma in Dhaurahra, PM Modi said that the poor and those belonging to the SC, ST and OBC communities have also come to the BJP.

"Muslim brothers and sisters are seeing that (houses under) PM housing scheme were given to all the needy. Be it water connection or gas cylinder under Ujjwala Yojana, every government benefit was given to all...they (Muslims) are also getting benefits of all schemes without discrimination," PM Modi said.

"The Muslim community also realises that the Congress and INDI alliance have made them pawns," he said, adding that "that is why the Muslim community is also distancing itself from these contractors of vote bank politics".

Now, to save the Muslim vote bank, these people (opposition) are playing a new game and are out doing appeasement in the open.

The prime minister said the manifesto of the opposition reflects Muslim League's thinking.

He pointed out that BR Ambedkar and even Jawaharlal Nehru had said it clearly that there would be no reservation on the basis of religion, and said the Congress and INDIA bloc are "adamant on giving reservation on the basis of religion".

"They don't realise that they are making ground to break the country once again on the basis of religion," the Prime minister said.

He went on to say that in Karnataka, Muslims were "made OBC" overnight and given reservations from the OBC quota.

"They (Congress) now want to do across the country what they did in Karnataka. They want to rob the reservation of SC/ST and OBC on the basis of religion," he claimed.

"Politics of appeasement has become compulsory for the existence of 'shehzade' of SP and Congress," he said in an apparent attack on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav.

At the rally, the prime minister was accompanied by sitting Dhaurahra MP Rekha Verma, MP from Lakhimpur Ajay Mishra Teni, BJP state president Bhupendra Chaudary and party's candidate from Sitapur Rajesh Verma.

In Dhaurahra, the BJP has fielded incumbent Rekha Verma. She is pitted against Anand Bhadauriya of SP and Shyam Kishore Awasthi of BSP.

Polling in Dhaurahra is scheduled on May 13 in the fourth phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)