Hitting out at the Centre, Maharashtra Cabinet Minister Nawab Malik on Wednesday termed US President Donald Trump's upcoming visit to India an "election gimmick", stating that he will not keep his 'big trade' promises to India after presidential elections in America.
"Donald Trump India visit is being undertaken for his presidential campaign. The Indian government is being used for the USA presidential elections. Trump has announced that the USA will do a big trade deal with India. It will be turned out to be nothing but an election gimmick after presidential elections," said Malik while speaking to .
US President Trump is scheduled to visit India on February 24-25. On his first day, he will visit Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state Gujarat and take part in a roadshow with Prime Minister Modi. He will also address the Indian crowd at "Namaste Trump" event in Ahmedabad.
The 2020 United States presidential election is scheduled for November 3, 2020.
The NCP leader further spoke about the implementation of the National Population Register (NPR) in Maharashtra and said that the state government will decide the questionnaire in NPR and Census.
"The propaganda is there that NPR will be implemented in Maharashtra. People have to understand the Census is mandatory in every state of the country in every 10 years. We will examine which question should be there in NPR and which shall be removed. We will examine the situation in the non-BJP states and then take a decision accordingly," he said.
On being asked about BJP targetting Congress over revelations made in former Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria regarding 26/11 Mumbai attack, he said he revealed nothing new as everything was mentioned in the chargesheet of the case.
"Maria has said nothing new as everything is already mentioned in the chargesheet in case of 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai. The culprits of 26/11 have been punished by our government. BJP is not aware of the facts... they should read the chargesheet before accusing the then government," he said.
In his book 'Let Me Say It Now', Maria claimed that had Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) succeeded in its plan, 26/11 Mumbai attacker Ajmal Kasab would have died as a Hindu named Samir Chaudhary.According to an excerpt from the book, if everything went according to plan, Kasab would have died as Chaudhary and the media would have blamed "Hindu terrorists" for the attack. He also claimed fake identity cards with Indian addresses were planted for 26/11 terrorists.
Now, BJP has claimed that there was a conspiracy to link the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack as a case of "Hindu terror".
( With inputs from ANI )