While giving a clean chit to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for the 2002 communal riots in that state, Bhartiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh on Thursday dropped a bombshell by virtually blaming former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for the anti-Sikh riots that followed the assassination of his mother, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984.
Replying to questions at a press conference in Lucknow, Singh said, “Let me tell you that the accusations against Modi are absolutely false; in fact it is his government that was responsible for punishing those who were guilty of rioting and communal frenzy in Gujarat in 2002.”
He said, “While much was being made out of the 2002 Gujarat riots, the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 were being systematically ignored, when everyone knows who was actually behind those riots.”
No sooner than a scribe sought to ask if the BJP chief was hinting towards Rajiv, pat came the reply, “You people are very intelligent and all knowing.” In the same vein, he recalled the much-talked Rajiv Gandhi quote in the aftermath of the anti-Sikh riots – ‘When a big tree falls, the earth is bound to shake’.
The BJP president went on to add, “Perhaps people do not know that India has witnessed as many as 3,900 communal riots and communally tense situations before the 2002 riots took place in Gujarat. In fact in Gujarat alone, there were 20 major riots of which 16-17 took place during different Congress regimes, but there is no talk about those incidents of large scale communal violence.”
Asked how many Lok Sabha seats his party was hoping to grab at the 2014 general elections, Singh hot back, “I am not an astrologer, but let me tell you that we are quite confident of winning at least 40 of the state’s 80 seats.”
He said, “We are confident of ridding the nation of Congress misrule and rampant corruption that has reached even the prime minister’s office.”
With a subtle smile, he added, “Mahatma Gandhi had himself said at the time of Independence that there was no further need of the Congress party; if Congressmen had adhered to his advice, India would not have been in such a mess that this party has driven the nation to.”
