Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s election speech in Rajasthan’s Banswara has raised a controversy over his references to Muslims, with leaders of the Opposition bloc INDIA calling the speech an attempt to divert attention from “real issues”.

“This ‘urban Naxal’ mindset, mothers and sisters, they will not even leave your ‘mangalsutra‘. They can go to that level… The Congress manifesto says they will calculate the gold with mothers and sisters, get information about it and then distribute that property. They will distribute it to whom – Manmohan Singh’s government had said Muslims have the first right on the country’s assets,” PM Modi said at the rally on Sunday.

“It will be distributed to infiltrators. Should your hard-earned money go to infiltrators? Do you approve of this?” PM Modi said.

“Is it acceptable to you? Do governments have the right to confiscate your property which you have earned through hard work? The gold with our mothers and sisters is not for showing off; it is related to their self-respect. The value of their mangalsutra is not in gold or its price, but is related to her dreams in life. And you are talking about snatching it?” PM Modi said.

Fortifying PM Modi’s claim, the BJP posted a 22-second video of Dr Singh’s speech from December 2006. “The Congress doesn’t trust their own Prime Minister?” the BJP said.

“We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on resources.”

– Dr Manmohan Singh, 9th Dec, 2006

The Congress doesn’t trust their… https://t.co/MWAf8uP23N pic.twitter.com/EDAKfasXT8

— BJP (@BJP4India) April 21, 2024

PM Modi in the speech was alluding to a comment by former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in December 2006 at a meeting of the National Development Council on fiscal priorities of the government. Then too, a huge controversy had broken out, after which the office of the then Prime Minister had issued a clarification on what it called a “deliberate and mischievous misinterpretation”.

According to the then Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Dr Singh had said, “I believe our collective priorities are clear: agriculture, irrigation and water resources, health, education, critical investment in rural infrastructure, and the essential public investment needs of general infrastructure, along with programmes for the upliftment of SC/STs, Other Backward Classes, minorities, and women and children.

“The component plans for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will need to be revitalised. We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on resources. The Centre has a myriad other responsibilities whose demands will have to be fitted within the overall resource availability.”

The PMO had said it would be seen from the above that the Prime Minister’s reference to “first claim on resources” refers to all the “priority” areas listed above, including programmes for the upliftment of SCs, STs, OBCs, women and children and minorities.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, reacting to PM Modi’s attack on Dr Singh, in a post on the microblogging website X said the Prime Minister now wants to diver the attention of the public from issues.

“After the disappointment in the first phase of voting, the level of Narendra Modi’s lies has fallen so much that out of fear, he now wants to divert the attention of the public from the issues. Trends have started coming regarding the immense support that Congress’s ‘Revolutionary Manifesto’ is receiving,” Mr Gandhi said in the post.

पहले चरण के मतदान में निराशा हाथ लगने के बाद नरेंद्र मोदी के झूठ का स्तर इतना गिर गया है कि घबरा कर वह अब जनता को मुद्दों से भटकाना चाहते हैं।

कांग्रेस के ‘क्रांतिकारी मेनिफेस्टो’ को मिल रहे अपार समर्थन के रुझान आने शुरू हो गए हैं।

देश अब अपने मुद्दों पर वोट करेगा, अपने…

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 21, 2024

“The country will now vote on its issues, vote for employment, family, and future. India will not go astray,” Mr Gandhi said.

Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera in a video statement on X said PM Modi has been telling “lies after lies” just to win elections.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, who is also a part of the Opposition bloc INDIA, criticised PM Modi over the speech. “Not only the country but the whole world also knows Prime Minister Narendra Modi lies, the way how he spread lies about the Congress’s ‘Nyay Patra’ and former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh is an example of dirty politics.”

The first of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections was held on Friday. Counting is on June 4.

The party of Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu won control of parliament in a Sunday election landslide, results showed, with voters backing his tilt towards China and away from regional powerhouse and traditional benefactor India.

Muizzu’s People’s National Congress (PNC) won 66 of the first 86 seats declared, according to the Elections Commission of Maldives results, already more than enough for a super-majority in the 93-member majlis, or parliament.

The vote was seen as a crucial test for Muizzu’s plan to press ahead with closer economic cooperation with China, including building thousands of apartments on controversially reclaimed land.

The PNC and its allies had only eight seats in the outgoing parliament, with the lack of a majority stymieing Muizzu after his presidential election victory in September.

The main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) — which had previously had a super-majority of its own — was headed for a humiliating defeat with just a dozen seats.

Muizzu, 45, had been among the first to vote Sunday, casting his ballot at a school in the capital Male — where he was previously mayor — and urging Maldivians to turn out in high numbers.

President Dr @MMuizzu cast his ballot in the 2024 Parliamentary Elections. The voting process took place at the polling station for the President’s constituency at the Thaajudheen School. pic.twitter.com/p4pHuXzx2R

— The President’s Office (@presidencymv) April 21, 2024

“All citizens should come out and exercise their right to vote as soon as possible,” Muizzu told reporters.

The Maldives, a low-lying nation of some 1,192 tiny coral islands scattered some 800 kilometres (500 miles) across the equator, is one of the countries most vulnerable to sea level rises caused by global warming.

Muizzu, a former construction minister, has promised he will beat back the waves through ambitious land reclamation and building islands higher, a policy which environmentalists argue could even exacerbate flooding risks.

The Maldives is known as a top luxury holiday destination thanks to its pristine white beaches and secluded resorts. 

But in recent years it has also become a geopolitical hotspot in the Indian Ocean, where global east-west shipping lanes pass the archipelago.

Muizzu won last September’s presidential poll as a proxy for pro-China ex-president Abdulla Yameen, freed last week after a court set aside his 11-year jail term for corruption.

This month, as campaigning for the parliamentary elections was in full swing, Muizzu awarded high-profile infrastructure contracts to Chinese state-owned companies.

His administration is also in the process of sending home a garrison of 89 Indian troops who operate reconnaissance aircraft gifted by New Delhi to patrol the Maldives’ vast maritime borders.

The outgoing parliament, dominated by the pro-India MDP of Muizzu’s immediate predecessor Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, has sought to disrupt his efforts to realign Maldivian diplomacy.

Since Muizzu came to power, lawmakers blocked three of his nominees to the cabinet and refused some of his spending proposals.

“Geopolitics is very much in the background as parties campaign for votes in Sunday’s election,” a senior Muizzu aide told AFP ahead of the poll, asking not to be named.

“He came to power on a promise to send back Indian troops and he is working on it. The parliament has not been cooperating with him since he came to power.”

Solih was also among those voting early and expressed confidence his party would emerge victorious. There was no immediate reaction from his party to their poor showing in Sunday’s vote.

Election chief Fuad Thaufeeq said after polls closed that turnout had already reached 73 percent of the 284,663 electorate when half an hour of voting remained.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

From January to February of this year, three new entities named Blackford, Black Pearl, and Vertex have emerged as significant suppliers of Russian crude to India’s private and state-owned processors. According to unnamed traders and refinery executives, these companies have made a substantial impact, although they are expected to be temporary solutions, lasting months but not years.