Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, that unity in diversity is integral to India while addressing ‘Aabhar Rally’ at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan today to kick start Bharatiya Janata Party’s Delhi Assembly Elections campaign slated for early next year, amid protests in Delhi and all over the country against the contentious Citizenship Act and the National Register of Citizenship(NRC). Modi raised slogan of ‘vividhta me ekta, Bharat ki visheshta’ (Unity in diversity is India’s speciality).

PM Modi while giving his party and government’s view on CAA and NRC said, “Muslims being misled, I have always ensured that documents will never come in way of development schemes and their beneficiaries.”

Citizenship law and NRC have nothing to do with Indian Muslims or with Indian citizens, he clarified.

“We have never asked anyone if he goes to temple or mosque when it comes to implementing our schemes,” said PM Modi at the rally.

PM Modi hit out at the critics of CAA. He said, “Dalits, who came here from Pakistan are among beneficiaries of citizenship law; why you can’t see their pain.”

Targeting the Congress he said, “We are doing what they (Congress) had promised but could not do due to vote-bank politics.”

“Congress and its allies upset due to the support I received from Muslim countries. Congress, others worried if Muslims across the world support me so much, how long can they frighten Indian Muslims. All attempts being made (by rivals) to remove me from their path,” said PM Modi.

While defending the role of the police during the anti-CAA protests PM Modi said, “33,000 police personnel laid down their lives during work since independence but now being attacked mercilessly.”

“Even after several decades after Independence, a large section of population in Delhi had to face fear, uncertainty, deceit and false electoral promises. Illegal, sealing, bulldozer and a cut-off date – life of a large population in Delhi’ was confined around these words,” news agency ANI quoted said Modi as saying.

PM Modi while targeting the AAP government in Delhi said, “Had the Delhi government not politicised the phase 4 project of Delhi metro, its work would have started much earlier. That is why I say that those who do politics in your name never understood your pain; they never intended to do that.”

As the Delhi elections campaign was on his mind, taking a swipe at AAP, Modi said, “No appeal for peace from seven-year-old party, it shows violence has its indirect approval.”

The rally was organised to thank Prime Minister Modi for giving ownership rights to 40 lakh residents of 1,731 unauthorised colonies.

A total of 11 lakh signatures by residents of unauthorised colonies were handed over to PM Modi as a “thank you gesture” for the passage of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Recognition of Property Rights of Residents in Unauthorised Colonies) Bill, 2019 in Parliament earlier this month.

With the Delhi elections in mind, rally was organized a little over a kilometre from Old Delhi’s Daryaganj that was hit by violence during protest.

An elaborate security arrangement had been made for the rally. According to a senior police official, 20 companies of outside force will be deployed. Each company has 70-80 personnel.

“Twenty DCP-rank officials will be there. As many as 1,000 personnel from local police, anti-drone teams and NSG commandos will be there. The entire area around the venue will be sanitised,” the official said.

Cutouts of Modi, BJP president and Home Minister Amit Shah and working president JP Nadda were put up around the Ramlila Maidan.

The major focus of BJP is on unauthorised colonies for the rally because this will become a big issue in elections. A tableau of unauthorised colony had been installed too.

This is the first rally of PM Modi in the national capital after the Lok Sabha elections.

Meanwhile, the protests erupted against the amended Citizenship law at many places in the country including Delhi. CAA seeks to provide citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who have faced religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan and have arrived in India on or before December 31, 2014.