A senior Congress leader sparked a fresh row on Sunday after tweeting that the Gujarat riots had resulted in the formation of terror outfit Indian Mujahideen. The statement evoked a sharp reaction from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which accused the Congress of playing the communal card for vote-bank politics.
“Indian Mujahideen was formed after the Gujarat riots, says NIA in its charge sheet. Even now BJP and RSS will not desist from their communal politics,” Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed tweeted.
Hitting back, the BJP said the remarks were “stupid” and “reprehensible” as the Pakistan links of such outfits were well known, and alleged that a “desperate” Congress was trying to communalise the political scenario and was playing with national security as it had “no answers for all the wrongs” it had done.
“There is this competition among various Congress spokespersons and leaders to deliberately communalise the country’s political scenario, because they have no answer to stinking corruption, malgovernance, price rice, unemployment, the general sense of suffering the people of India are having,” deputy leader of the BJP in the Rajya Sabha, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said.
Terror outfits, he added, were active in the country before the 2002 riots. “Why are they playing with national security? Is it not a fact that IM has links with Pakistan-based terrorist outfits … Is it not a fact that much before 2002, there was SIMI with designs to usher in terrorist attacks in India. These are all too well known. Please don’t play with national security.”
When contacted, Mr. Ahmed blamed the “communal politics of BJP for the chain reaction” on the issue of terror. “This [2002 riots] was the reason behind the creation of Indian Mujahideen. If they forsake their communal politics, outfits like IM will cease to exist,” he said.
