In an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a group of former judges, ex-diplomats, former public servants and armed forces officers on Saturday backed his Government and described a letter last week written by another group of their counterparts as "agenda driven" and "politicised".
A set of former civil servants called CCG had on April 26 addressed an open letter to the Prime Minister calling for "an end to politics of hate".
The counter letter by 'Concerned Citizens' said the "self-styled" Constitutional Conduct Group’s (CCG) "biased politicised statements" are not "acceptable".
"... the reality is that this is a manifest political anti-Modi Government exercise which this group undertakes periodically in the belief that they can shape public opinion against the ruling dispensation.
"This is way for them to release their frustration that public opinion remains solidly behind Prime Minister Modi as recent state elections have shown", the letter said.
The letter said that these open letters "repeat the same language, have the same tenor and use biased terms with clear ideological moorings speaks for itself.
"Strangely, one often notices a striking similarity between the phraseology of the CCG missives and utterances in the western media or by western agencies", it further said.
The statement hit-out at what it called the "studied silence of this so-called CCG on unprecedented post-poll violence in West Bengal - which was so serious that the Kolkata High Court had to mandate the National Human Rights Commission to carry out an independent investigation".
The letter said the same attitude shapes their reactions (or rather the lack of any reaction) to the multiple violent incidents in various states ruled by different political parties (premeditated attacks on peaceful processions during Ram Navami, Hanuman Jayanti, and other sacred festivals in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and New Delhi), and targeted violation of human rights adversely affecting the livelihoods of the poor irrespective of their religion.
" The reality is that instances of major communal violence have palpably decreased under the BJP government and this is appreciated by the public. This has instigated groups like the CCG to highlight beyond proportion sporadic instances of communal violence that no society can entirely eradicate", it said.
Their "anger and anguish" is not only empty virtue-signaling, they are actually fuelling the politics of hate they seek to combat by attempting to engineer hate against the present government with their patent prejudices and false portrayals,” said ‘Concerned Citizens'.
There are total 197 Signatories to the letter including ex-Chief Justice to Sikkim High Court Pramod Kohli, ex-Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal, former foreign secretary Shashank and ex-RAW chief Sanjeev Tripathi.