BJP president J.P. Nadda responded sharply to the joint statement by some Opposition parties on the National Democratic Alliance government’s studied “silence” on the recent incidents of communal violence, by stating that his party’s governments at the Centre and various States are being “bitterly resisted” by “rejected and dejected parties who are once again taking refuge in vote bank politics.”
In an open letter to the “citizens of India” on Monday morning, Mr. Nadda went to great lengths to point out various incidents of communal riots and violence under previous Congress and Opposition-led governments in the past. “In November 1966, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi opened fire on Hindu sadhus sitting outside Parliament who had marched towards Delhi with the demand of banning cow slaughter in India,” he wrote, adding “who can forget Rajiv Gandhi’s infamous words ‘when a big tree falls, the Earth shakes’ that justified the killing of thousands of Sikhs in the wake of PM Indira Gandhi’s death.”
“Gujarat in 1969, Moradabad 1980, Bhiwandi 1984, Meerut 1987, various incidents against Hindus in the Kashmir Valley throughout the 1980s, Bhagalpur 1989, Hubballi 1994…. the list of communal violence during Congress rule is long. Under which government did the Muzzaffarnagar riots happen in 2013 and in Assam in 2012?” he said in his statement. He deemed the National Advisory Council proposed Communal Violence Bill of the United Progressive Alliance government as “a new low”.
He also mentioned the recent castigation of musician Ilaiyaraja by “elements aligned to the ruling party” in Tamil Nadu in “verbally lynching, smearing and humiliating one of India’s tallest musical maestros just because his views are not palatable to one political party and their allies.”
He referred to political violence in West Bengal and the fact that two Ministers of the Maharashtra government were now behind bars.
“The reason for the shameful conduct by a select group of political parties lies in the above list of incidents,” he said, adding that “dyed in the wool proponents of vote bank politics that they are, these parties are fearing that their shenanigans are being finally exposed.”
He said that the recent results of the Assembly polls should be an “eye-opener” for such parties and that the youth of India wanted “opportunities and not obstacles” urging the Opposition to embrace the “politics of development” rather than vote bank politics.
