Rahul Gandhi's communal remarks will land Congress in trouble, warns BJP

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi warned on Saturday that Congress Party vice president Rahul Gandhi's "communal riots remark" in Uttar Pradesh could have a negative rebounding impact on that party itself.

According to reports, Rahul Gandhi had said in an interview to a national daily that the communal incidents in Uttar Pardesh were "artificially engineered" to "divide the poor and pit brother against brother".

Naqvi told ANI, "Rahul Gandhi should understand that he should stop using his political secularism formula. If he continues with his formula, it will be difficult for them. They should try to find a better political direction for their party. People have rejected them and still they are not able to understand that."

Another BJP leader Siddharth Nath Singh said, "In Uttar Pradesh, it has been the policy of the SP and the Congress to go for vote-bank politics. The Congress and SP have both led in the name of vote-bank politics, a policy to divide the people of Uttar Pradesh."

Attacking the Congress Party, Union Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister of State (Independent Charge) Prakash Javadekar said, "Rahul Gandhi going into an attacking mode is a useless thing, because the Congress is the biggest party that does communal politics. Congress spreads communal poison in the country, but we try to take everyone along."

Simultaneously, Environment minister and senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar said whatever is happening in Uttar Pradesh was because of Congress as it took support of the Samajwadi Party (SP), which is ruling the state, for ten years.

"If any party does communal politics, it is Congress. They had alliance with Muslim League. In Hyderabad they had tie up with MIM. Even now, in both the houses of Parliament...by discussing communal situation, their motive is to increase communal tension," Javadekar said while condemning Gandhi's statement.

"Whatever is happening in Uttar Pradesh...this SP government which is there is because of them (Congress).  It was the Congress, which took their support for the last ten years," Javadekar said.

The BJP leader said that Rahul Gandhi's statement should not be given much importance as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already said that his vision is to take everybody together.

"Rahul's statement should not be given so much importance. Narendra Modi has already said one has to decide whether one would fight against poverty or Hindus and Muslims will fight against each other. The vision is to take everybody together.

"But Congress' thinking is totally communal and I condemn his statement because their communal thinking comes out of that," Javadekar added.

Media reports stated that there have been over 600 incidents of communal violence between the end of May and July 2014 in Uttar Pradesh, which is ruled by the Samajwadi Party.