Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s reported remarks that the current spate of communal clashes in Uttar Pradesh were ``engineered’’ kicked up a political storm with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accusing the Grand Old Party of indulging in communal politics.
This is the second time this week that Mr. Gandhi has spoken out against the increasing number of reports from across the country about communal clashes; the first was in the Lok Sabha where he picketed the Well demanding a discussion on the issue.
Reacting to reports from Uttar Pradesh of a spike in low-key communal incidents in areas due to have by-elections later this year, Mr. Gandhi said these tensions were being engineered to ``divide the poor and pit brother against brother’’.
Giving it back in kind, Union Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting and BJP leader Prakash Javadekar said: ``If any party does communal politics, it is the Congress.’’ Referring to the Congress demand for a discussion on the communal situation nationwide in the Lok Sabha, he said the issue was being raised to increase communal tension. At the same time, Mr. Javadekar said Mr. Gandhi’s statement should not be given much importance; pointing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s stated intent of taking everybody forward.
Mr. Javadekar’s predecessor in the Ministry and Congress spokesman Manish Tewari pointed out that ever since the BJP Government had assumed office, it was evident that the new dispensation was interested in ``keeping communal temperatures towards a degree just below the boiling point so that they can exploit religious polarisation for political purposes’’.
While the Samajwadi Party accused the BJP of trying to destroy the syncretic Ganga-Jamuni culture of Uttar Pradesh and turn it into another Gujarat, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had on Thursday – in its editorial for the latest issue of the party organ People’s Democracy – noted that the BJP was trying to tear asunder the country’s social fabric.
