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VHP gets into election-mode, to launch massive campaign in Gujarat

Though its 500,000 cadres spread across 10,000 village committees would not campaign for any particular political party, VHP international general secretary Pravin Togadia said, "Whenever elections are held, the issue will not be (Chief Minister) Narendra Modi or Shankarsinh Vaghela (state Congress chief). People will vote for the Godhra martyrs and Ram devotees."

The Sangh Parivar outfit has convened two meetings of over 4500 office-bearers at Ahmedabad and Limbdi on August 11 to chalk out the strategy for the polls, he said.

"We will be mobilising our workers and launching a religious awareness campaign to expose the role of political parties in the Godhra incident. We will ensure the victory of those who respect Hindu sentiments and expose others," Togadia told reporters in Ahmedabad.

"Godhra's answer would be given at Gandhinagar," he said adding conferences and meetings would be organised across the state.

Togadia said the VHP was working towards 'more than' a landslide victory for Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Wyewitnesses of the Godhra incident would tour the villages in Gujarat in batches of two and three as part of the 'Hindu awareness' programme, he said.

The firebrand VHP leader charged the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) with becoming a party in the Gujarat violence and 'defending terrorists'.

Referring to NHRC Chairman J S Verma's equation of the Gujarat violence with 'war', Togadia asked, "If the killing of 800 people, out of which 300 were Hindus is war, then what about the killing of 70,000 people in Jammu and Kashmir. The NHRC has lost its credibility."

Equating the recent communal carnage in Gujarat as nothing short of a war in terms of sufferings and miseries undergone by the affected, Verma had on Sunday asked Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to translate his 'rhetoric' on religious intolerance into 'action'.

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