New Delhi: In his first public remarks on The Waqf Amendment Act, 2025 which was passed in parliament earlier this month when he was absent from the House, Prime Minister Narendra Modi harked back to 2002, as he used the contentious law to deliver a divisive speech in which he blamed the Congress for forcing Muslim youth “to spend their lives fixing cycle puncture tyres” and spreading “vote bank virus”.
Addressing a gathering in Haryana’s Hisar after laying the foundation stone of a new terminal building at the Maharaja Agrasen Airport and flagging off a commercial flight to Ayodhya, Modi on Monday (April 14), invoked Dr. B.R. Ambedkar on his birth anniversary to accuse the Congress of “snatching away” rights of SC, ST, OBC and reducing them to “second class citizens”.
While his own Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) does not have a single Muslim legislator in the Lok Sabha, Modi questioned the Congress about why it had not appointed any Muslim as its president or provided 50% tickets to Muslims so they could come to parliament, if it had real “sympathy” for the community.
Earlier, Modi had in a tweet called the passage of The Waqf Amendment Bill, 2025 a “watershed moment” after it was passed in parliament after two consecutive overnight sessions. However, the prime minister himself remained absent in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.
His remarks on Monday came in the backdrop of a communal flareup in West Bengal’s Murshidabad against the legislation, which found no mention in his speech which was focused on polarisation and the Congress.
Modi’s use of “Puncture-walla” slur dates back to 2002
“In the name of Waqf, lakhs of hectares of land is there in the country. With this land, this property, women and children should have been uplifted. Had it been honestly utilised, Muslim youth would not have to spend their lives by fixing cycle puncture tyres,” said Modi while addressing the gathering on Monday.
“There has been no gain for the Pasmanda Muslims. And who were these land mafia looting? This land mafia was looting the land of Dalits, downtrodden, adivasis and widows. Hundreds of widow women wrote to the Centre and then a debate on this law took place. Now this loot from the poor will be stopped.”
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.