Upbeat over the response in Bihar, the Congress has stepped up its campaign for the assembly elections by targeting the BJP over Hindutva, an issue considered a ‘no-go’ area for the grand old party.
The Congress launched a sharp attack on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the BJP over reports of police cane charging of devotees participating in the Durga Puja procession in Munger, going all out to paint the BJP and the JD(U) as “anti-Hindu”.
“Merciless crushing in the month of October… when Dusshera and Diwali are upon us. People doing puja-reverence of Maa Durga are being fired upon, chased around with lathis,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told reporters here.
“Is it a crime in this country to do Durga Puja with all safeguards?” Singhvi asked, describing Nitish Kumar as ‘merciless’ Kumar and likening him to General Dyer, who was responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar in 1919.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi hit the campaign trail in Bihar, the Congress also sought to remind him of the promise he had made in 2015 to develop a Ramayan Circuit worth Rs 100 crore in Bihar.
“A person who does not belong to Ram is of no use. In 2015, you announced Rs 100 crore for Ramayan Circuit but did not spend a single penny in the last five years. You even refused to build a museum on the life and times of Sita in Sitamarhi,” Randeep Singh Surjewala, AICC General Secretary, said.
Singhvi vehemently rejected suggestions that the Congress was playing the ‘Hindu card’ by raising the issue of attack on Durga devotees.
“Where is the politicisation in this? We are playing the humanity card. If you have an ace above the humanity card, please play it,” the Congress leader said.
Singhvi asserted that the Congress would have raised its voice equally strongly had any other community been attacked in a brutal fashion for worshiping their deity