‘Cong was soft on terror’: PM in Gujarat poll salvo
The Congress views terrorism from “the prism of vote bank”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a scathing attack on the opposition party on Sunday, accusing it of crying in support of the terrorists at the time of the Batla House encounter in 2008.
Terrorism was at its peak under the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the PM said at a public meeting in Mehmedabad town of Gujarat’s Kheda district.
“The Congress views terrorism from the prism of vote bank. Not only Congress, but many likeminded parties have come up now who view terrorism as a shortcut to achieving success and this small party’s hunger for power is even bigger,” he said, without naming the party. The PM accused the Congress of going soft on terror in a bid to protect its vote bank.
The Gujarat elections are expected to be a three-cornered contest, with the BJP launching a campaign blitzkrieg to retain power, the Congress seeking to gain lost ground and the Aam Aadmi Party looking to make inroads in the state.
Modi said the mouths of these parties remain “locked when big terrorist attacks take place so that their vote bank is not offended. They even go to courts from the back door to save terrorists”. “When Batla House encounter took place, a Congress leader cried for terrorists,” he said, adding “Gujarat and the country should remain alert from such parties”. The 2008 encounter,
which was launched following specific input about the presence of terrorists affiliated with the Indian Mujahideen, resulted in the deaths of two terrorists hiding in a flat in the Batla House area in Okhla. A police officer was also killed in the operation on September 19, 2008.
The Gujarat police have said that the encounter was a result of investigations into the serial blasts in Ahmedabad on July 26, 2008, in which 56 people were killed and 246 others injured.
He said the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks presented a grave picture about the terrorist attacks in the country. “I pray for the departed souls,” the PM said, a day after tributes were paid to commemorate the 14th anniversary of the 26/11 strikes unleashed by 10 Pakistani terrorists in which 166 people were killed and several injured. Gujarat has long been the target of terrorists but the situation changed once the
BJP formed government at the Centre, Modi said. “Gujarat had long been a target of terrorism. The people of Gujarat were killed in explosions in Surat and Ahmedabad. The Congress was at Centre then, we asked them to target terrorism but they targeted me instead. Terrorism was at the peak in the country,” he said.
“In Gujarat, we kept track of terrorist sleeper cells and arrested terrorists,” the PM said referring to the action taken by the BJP government when he was the chief minister.
“Terrorists have to think a lot even before attacking our borders. But Congress questions our surgical strike. The youth of the state, aged up to 25 years, have never seen what a curfew looks like. I have to save them from the bomb explosions, only BJP’S double-engine government can do this,” PM Modi said a reference to the BJP’S governments both at the Centre and in states.