There is no intolerance, says Najma Heptullah

Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptullah

Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptullah Monday said there was “no intolerance” in the country and that the decisions taken by the Narendra Modi government had proved wrong all allegations levelled against the PM about funds to the ministry handling minority affairs drying up under him.

“The corpus of National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation (NMDFC) used to be Rs 1,500 crore in the previous government. The ministry had been demanding an increase from the UPA government, but the UPA government did not increase it. I took it up before the Cabinet and within a minute, the Cabinet increased it to Rs 3,000 crore. Now where is intolerance? There is only tolerance,” the minister said on day one of the All India Regional Editors Conference in Jaipur.

“There is no intolerance. The government has increased the budget, the programmes are going on. What intolerance (are you talking about)? Sometimes Narendra Modi was made ‘intolerant’, sometimes I was made ‘intolerant’,” she said, adding that the budget of her ministry is now Rs 3,712 crore, which will be increased to Rs 5,000 crore in the next financial year.