BJP doing nasty politics: Rahul
SINGAPORE: Launching an attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress president Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday that there is a general atmosphere of “intimidation” in India where “nasty form of politics” of dividing people are being played to win elections.
Speaking at a panel discussion at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, Gandhi also said that there is a challenge to the institutional structure of India.
“There is a particular type of politics that’s not only happening in India but in a number of places — of dividing people, of using (their) anger to win elections and that’s what is happening in India,” he told the audience at the school.
Commenting on the recent controversy of four senior Supreme Court judges holding an unprecedented press conference, Gandhi said, “They actually went out to the press and said listen we need the people to hear our voice because there is something fundamentally wrong.”
“...The centre of the issue is the case of (BJP chief) Amit Shah. So, there is a challenge to the institutional structure of our country,” he said, in a veiled reference to the death of special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) judge BH Loya, who was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case.
Shah was discharged as an accused in the case.
Responding to a question, Gandhi accused the BJP and the RSS of indulging in anti-minorities politics.
“Mahatma Gandhi died protecting minorities. We, the Congress , have been protecting minority people for the last 70 years. We don’t like an India where people are persecuted, where people are being beaten up for what they eat, what they say and what they wear,” he said.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi controls the law making, he controls the UP police, he controls the Haryana police, he controls these things. An extremely nasty form of politics is playing out in India,” the Congress president said.
Reacting to Gandhi’s comments, BJP spokesperson GVL Narsimha Rao said “Playing caste politics is the Congress’ political culture. We practise value-based, performancebased politics. The institutions were under threat and subverted in successive Congress regimes during the emergency.”