Lok Sabha elections 2024 is battle between the citizens versus the government in power: NCP’s Siraj Mehdi

Pune, 26th April 2024: Nationalist Congress Party (Minorities Department) National Chairman Siraj Mehdi on Friday said that the current Loksabha Polls and the prevailing political situation in the country were similar to the 1977 parliamentary elections where all the political leaders imprisoned at the behest of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi where the citizens took the onus of defeating her during the elections.

“During pre 1977 elections all national leaders were behind bars right from Ram Manohar Lohia up to Chandrashekhar and other political leaders. It was a countryman versus government election. At that time, the countrymen won and Indira Gandhi lost. The current Lok Sabha elections are being fought on the same lines. All opposition leaders will be sent to jail and it will be citizens who will fight the elections and win,” said Mehdi while addressing media persons on the sidelines of his visit to take stock of the current political situation in the district.

Upbeat about the prediction of who will win the polls, Mehdi said that after the first phase, BJP leadership is in fear of getting defeated which is being revealed from their faces. “The current government and its functionaries have failed to deliver to the citizens what they had promised.  They have not fulfilled the promises made in the 2014 and 2019 manifesto. The current regime must be ashamed of its conduct as 700 farmers died on the road demanding their rights and neither the PM nor Home Minister Amit Shah visited them. They had promised two crore jobs but failed to deliver. The government has failed on all fronts and will soon see its demise after the elections,” he said.

Instead of addressing grassroots issues and empowering the citizens, the government under PM Modi took up emotive issues like scrapping Article 370, implementing the CAA-NRC bill and passing triple talaq to please the majoritarian interests.

“When will you give livelihood to the poor and the needy? China has intruded into India and the government is mum over the issue. Electoral bonds became an issue and revealed the extortion carried out by the government. Citizens are silent and when they are silent then it’s a warning bell for the government. This time we will not speak but will show through voting them out of power,” he said.

“We have come with our manifesto and will fulfil our promises. The Karnataka government fulfilled all the promises made in the manifesto. Everybody is talking about change in government in the centre. Muslims are capable but we want security. There is a talk of clampdown on madrasas which is a political stunt by the government. We don’t take government funds so why are we being targeted,” he questioned.

Taking a dig at the misuse of central agencies, he claimed, “For the first time in the seventy-year-old history of the country’s independence, ED, CBI and IT have become a tool almost like a political party working for the BJP. The arrest of Kejriwal has in fact increased his image in the eyes of the people.”

To a query on the promotion of Muslim talent in politics, Mehdi said that he would strongly recommend the name of a prominent NCP minorities leader and social worker from Pune, Ikram Khan, to the post of either an MLC or Rajya Sabha MP as recommended by the NCP party workers.

Khan said that as a party worker, he would serve in whatever position the party leadership would want him to for the cause of citizens and the nation. Khan said, “We will run a number of educational and economic upliftment programmes for the Muslim community under the minorities department of the NCP under the dynamic leadership of NCP Chief Sharad Pawar.”