Asaduddin Owaisi condemns Mohan Bhagwat's speech on population policy, calls it "full of lies and half-truths"

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Friday condemned Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat's speech in Maharashtra and called it "full of lies and half-truths".

Owaisi opposed the proposal for population policy in the country and alleged that the Muslim population growth rate has had the sharpest decline among all.

In a series of tweets, Owaisi wrote, "As usual, RSS Mohan's speech today was full of lies and half-truths. He called for a population policy and repeated the lie that the Muslim and Christian population has increased. Muslim population growth rate has had the sharpest decline among all. There's no 'demographic imbalance'."

"What one has to worry about are the social evils of child marriages and sex-selective abortions. 84 per cent of married kids are Hindus. Between 2001-2011, the Muslim female-male ratio leapt from 936 to 951 women for every 1000 Muslim men. But, the Hindu ratio only rose from 931 to 939," he tweeted.

AIMIM chief said that India has already achieved replacement level fertility rates without any coercive population policy. He tweeted, "Similarly, fact-free Mohan is worried about India's ageing population and the need to have a younger population to help the ageing. He should tell his student PM Modi about it."

No man has destroyed India's demographic dividend like the Prime Minister has, AIMIM said and added that, "Majority of India is young; they lack education, government support and jobs. What's the future of a country whose PM cannot promise anything more than a few pakora stalls?."

Owaisi highlighted that the population control policy will mean fewer youths in the working-age group.

"How will they support an ageing population? RSS chief Mohan called Taliban terrorists. This is a DIRECT ATTACK on PM Modi, whose government hosted them in our embassy. If they're terrorists, will government list them as such under UAPA?" he tweeted.

The Lok Sabha MP further alleged, "RSS chief Mohan also said that people in Kashmir were reaping the benefits of repealing Article 370. Is it with 29 targeted killings of civilians this year? With internet shutdowns and mass detentions? India's highest unemployment rate of 21.6 per cent is in Jammu and Kashmir," he said.

"Mohan demanded NRC again. NRC is nothing but a weapon to doubt citizens' Indianness and harass them. A government that didn't have a count of oxygen deaths, frontline workers' deaths, migrant workers' deaths or farmer suicides thinks it will "verify" citizenship of 1.37 billion Indians, " he tweeted.

Expressing concern over the "population imbalance" in the country, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Friday said that nation's population policy should be reconsidered.

In his annual Vijaya Dashami address, the RSS chief said, "While reimagining the country's development, one predicament comes to the fore which appears to concern many. The rapid growth of the country's population may give rise to many problems in the near future."

( With inputs from ANI )