Patna,(BiharTimes): While addressing his first rally at Purnea in Seemanchal belt of Bihar on March 10 BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi took the secular parties to task for using Muslims as vote-bank and ignoring them. He held the Congress and other secularists sitting in Delhi responsible for their sorry plight in the country.

In this regard he even quoted data from the Sachar Committee which submitted its report to the Manmohan Singh government in November 2006.

Stating that Muslims lagged behind other communities of the country he made a special reference to the condition of the community in his own state.

Comparing it with those of Gujarat he said that Muslims in Bihar are economically, socially, educationally, health-wise etc much behind their counterparts in Gujarat.

“Everyone has done politics with Muslims in the name of secularism. They have played with their future,” he said.

Emphasizing on unity in diversity he said how people of different cultures, races, languages, customs, castes, religions, tribes, dialects etc are living together.

He said that while Infant Mortality Rate of Muslims in Bihar is 71 per thousands that in Gujarat is only 34. The difference in the child mortality rate is also similar––100 and 49. Urban Muslims of Bihar spends Rs 550 while that of Gujarat Rs 875. Rural Muslims of Bihar spends Rs 436 while of Gujarat Rs 670.

Literacy of Muslims in Gujarat is 74 which is much ahead of Bihar.

Though the Sachar Committee report submitted its report in 2006 and based most of its data on 2001 Census, the year Narendra Modi became the chief minister of Gujarat, yet he did try to take credit for the better condition of Muslims there.

Similarly in 2001 Nitish Kumar was not the chief minister of Bihar so NaMo was not just targeting him but all the previous governments in the state.

Howeve, social activist-cum-Urdu newspaper columnist Engineer Aftab Ahmed somewhat disagrees with the way the figures have been quoted. He said it would be wrong to compare Muslims of Gujarat with that of Bihar and Bengal as the Muslims there had always been better off. There is a long history and Gujarat, with big coast, always has an entrepreneur culture.

Another political observer said that had Modi quoted the latest figure the difference between Gujarat and Bihar would have been the same. However, he hastened to add that Modi forgot that his own party was in alliance for seven and a half years in Bihar.

There is a large Gujarati Muslim business community spread all over India and even outside. In contrast Bihar has a history of exporting skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labourers, he added.

Whatever be the experts opinion Modi did his level best to send some message to the community in this Muslim-concentrated region of the state.

He said that more than 150 communal riots took place in UP last year. Assam was also rocked by communal violence, but none from the Third Front went to listen to the grievances of the victims. They did not turn up when the entire Kosi belt was devastated by flood in 2008. Now that it is the election time all of them have cropped up.

Apart from Congress and RJD he trained his guns on the Third Front as Nitish Kumar is its leading light. He ridiculed how a dozen of leaders are in the race for the prime ministerial candidate.