Congress is trying to create a rift between north and south: Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday accused the Congress of trying to drive a wedge between the northern and southern states and said the opposition party’s government in Karnataka was trying to create a narrative that will jeopardise the country’s future.

Replying to the debate to the motion of thanks in the Rajya Sabha, Modi lamented that the Karnataka government was building such a narrative through advertisements. His comments came even as the Karnataka government led by chief minister Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar took to New Delhi’s streets to protest alleged “financial discrimination” against the state.

“Today I want to share my pain on a specific matter... The way language is being spoken these days to break the country, these new narratives are being made for political gains. An entire state is speaking this language, nothing can be worse for the country than this... what language have we started saying,” Modi asked in the Upper House.

Modi said such narratives were not good for the country and could jeopardise its future.

He asked the House what would happen if a vaccine is made in one part of the country and someone says that it can’t be given to other parts. “What is this thinking? And it is very painful that such language is emerging from a national party, it is very sad,” he said.

“The Congress, which had openly strangled democracy in its greed for power, the Congress which had dismissed democratically elected governments dozens of times overnight, the Congress which had even tried to lock newspapers, is now trying to break the country,” he said.

Modi compared the country to a human body and drew an analogy to the functioning of the nation with that of the human body. He said that even if one state remained underdeveloped, the nation could not be considered developed, just as how one injured organ or limb affects the entire body. “This nation is not just a piece of land for us. It is like the human body, if there is pain somewhere, the hand doesn’t say that the thorn is in the foot and it doesn’t concern me...if there is pain anywhere in this country, pain should be felt by everyone. If one body part does not work, the entire body is dubbed as handicap, if any part of the country is left without development, then the country cannot become developed. Therefore, we should look at the country as one and not separate parts,” Modi said.

He cited the example of the Himalayas, asking what if one argued that rivers flow from there and so the water couldn’t be shared with others. “What will happen to the country, where will this stop? States which have coal if they say that we won’t share it with others, how will the country function? If eastern states had said that we won’t share oxygen with other regions during Covid, what would have happened then?”

He said the country is one and not the sum of separate parts. “But there is an attempt to break this. ‘Hamara tax, hamara money’ (our tax, our money), what is this language being spoken? Stop using such new narratives to break the nation. Make efforts to take the country along,” the PM said.

The protests mark deepening fissures between the Union government and states ruled by parties opposed to the BJP, particularly those from southern India, with Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan set to hold a similar protest on Thursday, with support from Tamil Nadu.

The Union government has rejected the allegations against it, with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman saying that they were based on factual errors, false monetary claims, misleading statements and selective mention of certain losses.

Siddaramaiah, during the protest in Delhi, dismissed the BJP’s allegation that the protest was aimed at raking up a North-South divide. “We are raising the issue of discrimination meted out by the government of India to the state of Karnataka and other southern states,” he said.

The Congress wants the country to be united but there should be no discrimination against the southern states, he said.