BJP giving communal colour to killing of elephant in Kerala: K.C. Venugopal

The party must tender an unconditional apology: Venugopal

Saying it with sand: Ajay Rawat giving final touches to a sand sculpture of an elephant in Pushkar on Thursday.

The BJP must tender an unqualified and unconditional public apology for giving communal colour to the death of a pregnant elephant in Kerala, Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal said on Thursday.

He was responding to the statements of Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar and former Union Minister Maneka Gandhi.

The death of the elephant after it ate a pineapple stuffed with firecrackers has made headlines across the world.

Mr. Venugopal said any kind of mindless violence against wildlife was unacceptable. But Mr. Javadekar and Ms. Maneka Gandhi were “deliberately” using the incident to spread communally motivated false information. They were even dragging Congress leader Rahul Gandhi into the controversy.

“This propaganda has proved once again that the BJP will stoop to any level to twist the facts for its narrow, divisive political purposes. It is shedding crocodile tears over the incident, and this divisive propaganda has exposed the BJP’s hypocrisy,” Mr. Venugopal said.