Minority meet: Speaker Vasava says Muslims grew in Modi’s Gujarat

Ganpat Vasava, Assembly Speaker and MLA from tribal constituency of Mangrol, turned Chief Minister Narendra Modi's Sadhbhavana ambassador at BJP's minority meet here on Tuesday and said Muslims in the state have witnessed growth under him.

Vasava, who was chief guest at the meet attended by over two thousand people, told the gathering, "I want to say that Islam gives message of peace and harmony. Congress party's policy is to divide and rule. After independence, the Congress party divided brothers and ruled the country. Narendra Modi speaks about six crore Gujaratis, which includes both Hindus and Muslims. We should say he is secularist as he has never discriminated. Due to the divide-and-rule policy, Muslims have been left behind and are away from the mainstream. Now the community has awakened, and since 2001 when Narendra Modi became CM, we have (seen) development and growth among Muslims too."

He said the Congress was fighting without a commandant in Gujarat for the last two assembly elections, and therefore they were losing. The BJP, on the other hand, was winning the "war" because it had a strong commandant (chief minister), he said.

While BJP national vice-president Parshottam Rupala, who was also invited, could not make it because of BJP's parliamentary board meeting that started in Gandhinagar today, conspicuous was the absence of state BJP minority cell president Mehboob Ali Bawa.

Muslim faces of the BJP included chairman of Waqf Board A I Saiyed and Gujarat State Director of Finance Board Dr Mohsin Lokhandwala. Over 100 of youths and Congress workers belonging to minority community joined BJP in the meeting.

Saiyed, a former IPS officer who joined BJP after retirement, said, "I had been in the police department in Gujarat for over 30 years. During my tenure, in majority of the districts I came in direct contact of Congress leaders when they were in power. I found they were using Muslims as goons and had never thought for growth and development of the community."

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