Pune: Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said the MVA leaders have promised the whole of India Muslim Personal Law Council member Sajjad Nomani that he would ban the RSS in Maharashtra if the ulema (a group of Muslim scholars) supported MVA candidates in the assembly poll.
Fadnavis said, “Banning the RSS is beyond their capacity (aukat).” He claimed that there were 16 other demands that the MVA members promised to accept if they formed the government.
Addressing a rally in Pune’s Kasba Peth assembly constituency late on Friday evening, Fadnavis said, “I have come here to awaken voters to unite against electoral jihad. Every vote is important for our existence. If we don’t wake up now, we never will. capable of responding.”
He played a part of the alleged video of Nomani in it, where he is heard saying that the assembly poll is important and that if Mahayuti was defeated in the state, the government at the Center could not last for long.
Fadnavis added, “Along with the assurance to ban the RSS, the MVA members accepted other demands, including the release of Muslims arrested in cases of riots registered in the state since 2012 and a 10% reservation towards the community. It shows that they (MVA) started by licking the feet of the ulema and entered the electoral jihad. They are using the same tactics they adopted during the Lok Sabha campaign but this time they will not be successful.
The deputy minister reiterated his call for ‘dharmayudh’ of votes to defeat ‘vote jihad’.
He accused the MVA of indulging in appeasement policies. “They have sold a false narrative that the Constitution will be changed. In reality, they have no respect for the Constitution. They are spreading the same narrative in the assembly poll too, but they have realized that it is not working in their favor as a people. from Maharashtra they have understood their false narrative. Hence, they started indulging in vote jihad,” he said.
He calls Dhangekar an ‘accidental MP’
BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis on Friday called Congress MLA Ravindra Dhangekar an ‘accidental MLA’ after his victory in the 2023 polls.“Like the movie ‘Accidental Prime Minister’, the Kasba Peth seat got an ‘accidental MLA’. It works less but adds drama and would be suitable in a theatre,” Fadnavis said during his rally. He acknowledged the contribution of former BJP members late Girish Bapat and late Mukta Tilak, who represented the seat, to the constituency.