Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has accused BJP of practicing "politics of blood" by pitting one religion against another and one caste against another to come to power at any cost, escalating the Congress attack against the opposition party.
'At no time since Independence this issue of whether we are a secular country or whether we are a Hindu Rashtra has come up in this manner.' 'This is the most important issue which is going to decide whether we remain together as one country or not.'
'We have made no effort in recent years to build a national opinion on Kashmir amongst political parties.' 'At least we should speak as one country.' 'It has been a failure of our foreign policy that we have not been able to convince world opinion that something needs to be done about Pakistan.'
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The UP government, if it manages to remain in power now, must take immediate steps to ensure that no violence takes place as the country gears up for the elections. Action has to be taken to prevent this, not just through the law and order machinery, but through a secular campaign in which all non-communal political parties participate, says Seema Mustafa.
'Koi Sardar hai? Goli se maar dalenge...' 'The only sardars who were spared in the train were the six with us. And the credit goes to the innate goodness of the passengers in our coach.' Payal Singh Mohanka remembers that horrifying train journey in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi's assassination.
'Little about this regime, given its vindictive credo, is a complete surprise. But we were still taken aback by the CBI raid as it was a complete abuse of due process.' 'These are not legal inquiries, but abusive use of State power. They are not legitimate investigations, but a witch-hunt.' 'Ours is a typical, classic case of the State and its organs being used as an outlet for motivated vendetta of the vilest kind.'
'Modi's more than dozen interviews are helping him fine-tune the rough edges of his campaign. He is trying to influence floating voters, undecided voters, non-committal and caste-neutral voters into deciding whether to go for the Lotus or not. These could have been Congress voters, but its divided house, torn between the old guard and Rahul Gandhi, seems to have got completely confused.' Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt lists what the Congress did wrong to find itself in such a sorry mess today.
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