By IANS,
New Delhi : The Congress party Friday launched an offensive against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the alleged involvement of Servicemen in the Malegaon blasts, and asked whether it had tried to “saffronise” key institutions in the country.
“Several questions are staring at the BJP. The BJP must answer whether it has tried to saffronise key foundational institutions of our country?” asked Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi at a press conference here.
Singhvi said the alleged involvement of Lt.Col. Shrikant Purohit and retired Major Ramesh Upadhyaya, former head the BJP’s Mumbai unit of ex-servicemen’s cell, is an aberration in the otherwise neutral security forces.
“We are proud of our army, but ashamed of such individuals who under the influence of a particular ideology tried to infiltrate the secular and democratic institutions of our country. These are rare aberrations,” Singhvi told reporters.
The police suspect that Purohit helped accused Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Upadhyaya and his associate Sharad Kulkarni in procuring explosives used in the devastating Malegaon blast. The three are already in police custody.
Singhvi also alleged that the BJP had used ministries like Human Resource Development and institutions like NCERT to propagate its hate-filled agenda during its regime and along with the Sangh Parivar established institutions that were being used to propel their politics of exclusion.
“The BJP has established institutions like Sankalp which are used to give training of their exclusionist ideology to civil service aspirants. The BJP must reveal how many other institutions are being used by it to propel the divisive ideology,” Singhvi said.
Six legislative assemblies are going to the polls in the next few weeks. Terrorism was a major issue for the BJP to corner the Congress party. However, with the arrest of Upadhyaya and Pragya Thakur, a former ABVP member, for their alleged involvement in the Sep 29 Malegaon blast, the Congress has now come on the offensive.