The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday quoted U.S. President Barack Obama advising the use of vote as a tool of “revenge” to justify party general secretary Amit Shah’s speech, asking Jats of Muzaffarnagar to avenge last year’s violence through the ballot box.
Making an attempt to downplay Mr. Shah’s choice of words as accepted election talk, senior party leader Ravi Shankar Prasad quoted a speech made by Mr. Obama in Ohio during his campaign where he said “voting is the best revenge.”
Defending Mr. Shah, a close aide of the BJP’s prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi, he said: “What Mr. Shah said is that election is an occasion to seek redress of grievances.”
