The Congress on Monday countered Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s charge saying that the burqa of secularism is better than naked communalism as the former binds the country while latter divides it.
While maintaining this, Congress general secretary Ajay Maken also presented facts and figures to rebut Modi’s charges about the UPA Government’s failure on the developmental front.
Maken said that achievements of the UPA at the Centre in the field of education, mid-day meal, sports and economy are better than that of the previous NDA regime and the present Gujarat Government.
Expressing similar views, Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari charged the BJP of trying to polarise the politics. He said the country has to choose between an inclusive and pluralistic vision of the Congress and sectarian and majoritarian of the Opposition.
‘The cloak of secularism is all pervasive. It envelopes Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains — people of all faiths — while the veils of communalism are extremely sectarian. They believe, in their language people whom they qualify as ‘kutte ka bachcha’, which you (media) translated as puppies, should be crushed under the wheels of communalism,” he said.
The strong reaction indicated that the Congress has changed its strategy and decided to take the BJP’s Campaign Committee chief head on. Maken said that by putting up facts and figures about the dismal performance of the Gujarat Government before the public he would expect Modi to be more careful in future while making such claims and must compare UPA’s work with previous NDA Government and his own State Government.
Referring to Modi’s attack about India not getting medals in Olympics, Maken said that in the national games Gujarat failed to get any from the 444 gold medals and received just seven medals from the total 1,089 medals despite the people of State being sports enthusiasts.
For education, the UPA Government spent Rs 52,875 crore in the current fiscal which is 4.2 per cent of GDP while NDA regime had spent just Rs 6,800 crore in 2003-04 which was 1.67 per cent of GDP. Gujarat was ranked 14th among States with many posts of principals and teachers remaining vacant in colleges of State.
About Modi’s charge about corruption in Commonwealth Games, Maken said that the Gujarat CM has no moral authority to make allegations about corruption till the time tainted Minister Babubhai Bokhaia, who has been convicted for Rs 52 crore corruption remains in his Cabinet.
Both Maken and Tewari dismissed BJP leader Yashwant Sinha’s criticism saying that they would respond only when Sinha would start being taken seriously by his own party.
BJP must focus on corruption: Sinha
Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha has sounded a word of caution to his party, asking it to keep “real issues” of economic downturn and corruption in focus. The former Union Minister claimed secularism versus communalism debate would shift the attention from these real issues.
Even as Sinha claimed he was not offering any advice to the Gujarat Chief Minister on how he should conduct the campaign, his remarks come a day after Modi accused the Congress of hiding behind a ‘burqa’ of secularism to escape from its failures.
“We should bring the debate back to current issues which are basically economic issues. The issue of poverty, bread and unemployment are the issues which are hurting people. It is not communalism or secularism,” Sinha told reporters.
In a newspaper article, Sinha has said that Congress should not be allowed to force a debate on its terms and that the real issues of economic crisis, price rise, misgovernance and corruption should be debated upon.
“Modi-baiters have a clear gameplan. The more he speaks, the more controversy they will create. The pre-election political discourse will, thus, be distorted and attention will shift from the mis-governance and corruption of this government to what happened more than 11 years ago in Gujarat. We must bring the discourse back from the past to the present,” Sinha said in his article.
He further wrote, “The secular/communal divide in our polity is the most spurious of all divides. Rabid casteists are masquerading as champions of secularism.
The real issues are the bread, onion and salt of the people. The real issue is corruption at every step in which this Government has indulged. It will be a grave mistake to allow Congress to
change the agenda and force a debate on its terms.”
He termed the current debate on communalism and secularism as “sterile” and “useless”. Sinha said he has written to the entire political class not to get into it as no one is benefiting from it and instead focus on the issues and problems of the people.