BJP reminds Cong of Rahul’s remarks on ‘Hindu radicals’

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 1

Prepared for a complete washout of the monsoon session, the BJP today launched another attack on the Congress on “Hindu terror”. It took on Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi over his reported comments that radicalised Hindu groups might be a bigger threat than the local support for terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

The attack comes a day after Home Minister Rajnath Singh accused the previous UPA government of “weakening India’s fight against terrorism” by coining the term “Hindu terror”.

The BJP, it seems, is in no mood to concede to the Congress’ demands, including a statement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, let alone sacrifice any of its embattled leaders for the sake of running Parliament. And this is evident over the way the party is now targeting the Congress, which has been making life difficult for the Modi government in Parliament.

Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad quoted a news report to say that Gandhi in a 2010 conversation with the then US Ambassador had said “there was evidence of some support for Laskar-e-Taiba among certain elements in India’s indigenous Muslim community, the bigger threat may be the growth of radicalised Hindu groups, which create religious tensions and political confrontations with the Muslim community”. The report was based on documents released by Wikileaks.

Maintaining that terrorism had no religion and colour and that the BJP never used the term “Muslim terror” but “jihadi terror”, the minister asked Congress president Sonia Gandhi to clarify her son’s comments. “Does she support his comments,” he questioned while hitting back at Leader of the Opposition in RS Ghulam Nabi Azad who said Rajnath Singh was trying to polarise society and divert attention from the Modi government’s failures by raking up such issues.