By IANS,
Lucknow: Attacking Law Minister Salman Khurshid over his defiant stand on a quota for backward Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitley Sunday accused the Congress leaders of indulging in communal politics for votes.
“There is a method to this politics, divide the society on religion and get votes. It seems the Congress leaders have lost their mental balance and are doing things in desperation,” he told reporters here.
Linking the UP elections to recent incidents, Jaitley said: “First Salman Rushdie was stopped from attending the literary festival in Jaipur. The fact that Salman Rushdie was prevented from coming to Jaipur or even addressing festival on video link was clear indication of Congress succumbing before fundamentalists.”
Attacking the Congress, he said that there was no place for religious base reservations under the law.
“Despite that, the central government announced 4.5 percent reservation for Muslims and now law minister kept saying to increase it to 9 percent,” Jaitley said.
He said that Khurshid’s announcement that party president Sonia Gandhi cried at seeing pictures of Batla House gunfight was an attempt to get votes of fundamentalists.
“When the union home ministry has clearly said that Batla House was a genuine encounter and it badly affected terror outfit Indian Mujahideen, bringing down number of blast incidents in the country. But Khurshid and Digvijay Singh have kept questioning it,” he said.
He asked had any Congress leader cried for those killed in 26/11 Mumbai attacks or at the death of security personnel in 2011 parliament attack.