BJP taking country on path of conflict: Chidambaram

GUWAHATI: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Friday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of reopening issues that are polarising the country and taking it on a path of conflict and economic disaster.

“The BJP (is) nearing the end of its term, (and) has resurrected the Hindutva agenda,” Chidambaram said, pointing out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had himself on August 15, 2014, appealed to the people to put a moratorium of 10 years on all issues that were divisive and controversial.

“Today, that appeal has been forgotten and the BJP -- from the prime minister to the chief ministers, ministers and party functionaries to ‘pracharaks’ to supporters -has embraced Hindutva and has reopened every issue that is divisive, controversial and polarising,” the former Union minister told reporters here.

Chidambaram said the Congress was implacably opposed to the BJP not because of being a rival party. “The opposition to BJP is because its vision of India is majoritarian, insular, exclusionary, discriminatory, oppressive and illiberal.”

He said it was the duty of the Congress to caution the people that the BJP was taking the country “on a path of conflict and economic disaster”.

“The BJP had come to power on promises that it never intended to fulfil, and which, anyway, it was incompetent to deliver... Many of those promises were ‘jumlas’...,” he said.