Congress bid to create divide: BJP on purification row

The BJP on Saturday hit back at the Congress for the Opposition party’s “stage purification” allegations against the Uttarakhand BJP. It alleged that Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had lied about the sequence of events.

After Rahul demanded an FIR in the matter accusing the BJP of caste-based discrimination for “purifying a stage where Kharge had addressed a rally”, the BJP said the event in question was a normal cleanliess drive and was “maliciously linked to caste to create political divide”.

BJP chief spokesperson Anil Baluni said Rahul was deliberately giving a caste angle to a normal cleanliness programme. Baluni, in a post on X, said, “Rahul Gandhi’s shop of lies and hate exposed! He is lying, Haldwani event was a cleanliness programme.”

“To give it a caste angle and play politics even with a cleanliness programme that had nothing to do with caste does not suit the Leader of the Opposition. Those who were present at the prayer and cleanliness programme were also from the Dalit community and had no connection with the BJP either,” said Baluni, accusing Congress of fabricating allegations.

BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi and Guru Paswan also alleged that the Congress wanted to divide Hindus for political gains. Referring to Article 370, Trivedi alleged that its provisions had led to discriminatory domicile restrictions against members of the Valmiki community in Jammu and Kashmir.

The BJP also mentioned BR Ambedkar to say the Congress had always done injustice to Dalits.