BJP leaders cite services in poll campaign to highlight valour of forces: Ram Madhav

BJP general secretary Ram Madhav on Tuesday refuted charges of politicisation of services in the ongoing election campaign and instead claimed that party leaders cite the services to highlight the valour and commitment of the armed forces towards national security.

"We are just referring to recent examples of armed forces' valour and commitment towards national security. Many such incidents had taken place in the past as well. Surgical strike is another such example," Ram Madhav said at a press conference here.

Defending Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, the party general secretary said that the leaders mentioned about the armed forces in their election rallies to express respect.

 

He said, "We are not making it an electoral agenda, we look at it as a respect to the forces."

He threw the ball in the Opposition's court and held it responsible for dragging the services into politics. "It is Opposition leaders who dragged the Balakot airstrike in politics," Madhav said.

Alleging that the Opposition doubted the valour of armed forces, Madhav said: "Those who doubt whether our forces carried out such actions or not, do not doubt us but they have a doubt on forces."

Madhav's comments came days after a purported letter by a group of veterans appealing President Ram Nath Kovind to direct political parties not to use services in poll campaigning, surfaced on social media. Later, however, some senior veterans mentioned as signatories in the letter denied having written any such letter.

PM Modi in a recent speech in Maharashtra exhorted first-time voters to dedicate their ballot to CRPF jawans who were in Pulwama terror attack and to the IAF pilots who raided a terrorist camp in Pakistan's Balakot.

Assuring the people of Northeast that their woes regarding citizenship would end soon, Madhav said that the National Register of Citizens will be "released in July end". He said, "Citizenship (Amendment) Bill will also come by then. Once both of these come, issues relating to foreigners will be resolved."

According to him, there is no option before the country other than Modi and the countrymen will once again make Modi the Prime Minister.

He claimed that the country witnessed no act of violence or rioting in the last five years.

The BJP leader also slammed Congress for indirectly joining hands with Badruddin Ajmal's All India United Democratic Front to win elections in Assam. He reiterated BJP's confidence of winning 20 out of 25 Lok Sabha seats in Northeast region.