NEW DELHI: Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday slammed former US president Barack Obama’s statement about minority rights in India, saying his remarks were surprising as six Muslim-majority countries had faced US “bombing” during his tenure.
Without naming former US President Barack Obama, she expressed surprise at his remarks on Indian Muslims during PM Modi’s US visit.
“I was surprised that when the PM was in the US speaking about India, a former US President gave statements about Indian Muslims. Bombings in six Muslim dominated nations including Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq happened under his regime, war like situations developed and over 26000 bombs were dropped. When he makes unfounded comments about India how will Indians trust him?” asked the FM speaking to the press at the BJP headquarters here.
She said Congress-led opposition knew it could not defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi electorally and was therefore mounting motivated minority-related campaigns at home and through west-based toolkits.
Noting that of the 13 top awards PM Modi had received in nine years of his rule, six had been conferred by Muslim dominated nations, Egypt being the latest, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today said the opposition was resorting to “organised campaigns on minority issues because they see no prospect of electoral victory against the PM and BJP led NDA politically.”
Egypt on Sunday conferred its highest honour, “Order of the Nile” on PM Modi, who is on a two-day visit to the country.
She said Opposition leaders during foreign trips never spoke in India’s interest and were using others to their ends.
“Because they (opposition) can’t defeat Modi, they use people and such people get involved in discussions without knowing ground realities,” the FM said, in reference to Obama’s recent remarks that India risked pulling apart if Muslim minority is not respected.
The FM also dismissed allegations of minorities being insecure in India and said such insinuations were mere campaigns by politicians who did not trust people to vote for them.
“In this country we have people running motivated campaigns against the PM because they know they cannot defeat him and the BJP and NDA politically. Yes, they won Karnataka but because they see no long term prospects of electoral victory that is why they are running such organised campaigns,” the FM said.
She accused the Congress of fuelling the campaigns saying the principal opposition party had been active against the PM since the last two elections.
“They even sought Pakistan’s help to dislodge the BJP government. Toolkits active in foreign countries have been pressed into action. They have no confidence in themselves or in the people that they will listen to them. Hence they are levelling baseless allegations against the PM,” the FM said, hailing PM’s US visit as historic and noting the honours Muslim dominated Egypt extended to the PM including a reception by the nation’s Grand Mufti.