PANAJI: Under attack over mobs killing those suspected of cow slaughter or eating beef, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah has termed such incidents as “serious,” but claimed more of these happened under the previous governments than the three years of NDA rule.
Shah also insisted there was “no apprehension or fear” anywhere in the country in the aftermath of such incidents, claimed sources in the BJP.
The sources claimed that Shah said there have been more lynchings each year in the past, in 2011, 2012 and 2013, compared to the total lynching incidents that have happened during the three-year-long tenure of BJP.
PTI ADDS FROM DELHI
The BJP president’s claim provoked a sharp counteroffensive from the Congress whose spokesperson Randeep Surjewala accused the Modi government of “overtly” supporting the “lynching movement.”
Reacting sharply to Shah’s accusation, the Congress party whose government preceded Modi’s alleged these incidents had “tacit protection and support” of the BJP dispensation.
Surjewala said despite President Pranab Mukherjee showing the “mirror of truth” to the BJP government on incidents of “mob frenzy that have become irrational and uncontrollable,” Shah has chosen to ignore it.
“Instead of listening to the conscience keeper of the nation Shah has most shamelessly chosen to ignore the reality of a bizarre yet concerted lynching movement which the government has overtly supported and encouraged in the last few months,” Surjewala said in a statement.
“Will Amit Shahji respond to 52 mob violence/lynchings in past 3 years of BJP govt? what action was taken?” he said in a tweet. “Mob frenzy & lynching has become the rule under BJP govt’s watch. Corrective action, not falsification is the way Amit Shahji,” he said in another tweet.