Muslim youths ‘bicycle puncture’ remark: Modi faces severe backlash
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New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's words, implying that Muslim youth are making a living out of ‘repairing bicycle punctures’, were caught in the whirlwind in the public sphere after Opposition leaders strongly condemned his statement.
While addressing the inauguration ceremony of an airport at Haryana's Hisar on Monday, Modi claimed that lakhs of hectares of Waqf property were being misused and if they had been used, “honestly Muslim youths wouldn't need to earn a livelihood from repairing bicycle punctures.” He claimed that only a few land mafia benefited from those properties, and they were looting lands belonging to Dalits, backward sections and widows, NDTV reported.
AIMIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi strongly came down on Modi, saying that if the Sangh Parivar had used its ideology and resources in the country's interest, the Prime Minister "would not need to sell tea" in his childhood. He asked what Modi has done for Muslims, being 11 years as Prime Minister.
He wrote on X, "The biggest reason for what happened with Waqf properties is that Waqf laws were always weak. Modi's Waqf amendments will weaken them further,” he slammed.
Congress's Rajya Sabha MP Imran Pratapgarhi said that Modi used a language of low lying that trolls use on social media. He said that such a remark does not behove the prime minister after the prime minister himself brought the country's youth to this point of having no jobs. The options for youth nowadays are fixing punctures or selling fritters, he said and hit back that Muslims do not just fix punctures, and he could provide a list of what Muslims have achieved so far.
“You are saying Congress sympathisers (with Muslims). Do you hate them? If you don't, why did you throw Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Shahnawaz Hussain, MJ Akbar and Zafar Islam in the dustbin?” NDTV quoted Imran Pratapgarhi.
He reminded me that Modi wanted to do good for Muslims, but he had no Muslim MPs to represent the community.
He also reminded me, "You talk about the rights of Muslim women. You don't have a Muslim woman member in Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha or any state Assembly,” NDTV quoted.