Modi Makes 2024 Pitch, Says Oppn Is Desperate

Two days after he returned from the United States and Egypt, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a sharp pivot to domestic politics, setting the contours of the BJP's 2024 Lok Sabha push to his party's booth workers, backing the demands for a Uniform Civil Code, reaching out to backward Muslims, attacking the opposition on dynasty and corruption and framing the choice facing voters as between "tushtikaran"(appeasement) and "santushtikaran" (the politics of satisfaction).

- Shruti Tomar

Modi spoke for a full 110 minutes at the 'Mera Booth Sabse Majbut' programme, addressing around 2500 raucous Bhartiya Janata Party booth workers in Bhopal that often broke into chants of Modi, Modi or Jai Shri Ram, and over a million more booth workers watching online from across the country, in an event, he said, was likely unique anywhere in the world.

The organisation of an event on this scale, of ground workers of a political party, has perhaps never happened anywhere else in the world, Modi said.

A little short of two weeks after the Law Commission of India solicited suggestions on the controversial Uniform Civil Code, in what is set to be a key fault-line ahead of the 2024 elections, Prime Minister Modi said that Muslim brothers and sisters would have to understand that political parties were destroying them by taking advantage of them.

These days, people are being provoked by the UCC. You tell me, if there is one law for one person in a home, and another law for another person, can that house function? Modi asked. As the crowd roared in denial, Modi said, Then how can a country work with such a hypocritical system? We have to remember that even the Constitution of India talks of common rights but the Muslim community has been deprived of education, of employment, and forced to live a difficult life. Even the Supreme Court says bring the Uniform Civil Code.
On Muslims

The Prime Minister specifically spoke of Pasmanda or backward Muslims, continuing an outreach he also made in February 2023, and argued that they had been left marginalised by those that do “vote bank politics.”