By IANS,
New Delhi : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Monday asked Congress president Sonia Gandhi to reply to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s question to her on who was “maut ka saudagar” (merchant of death) in Bhopal gas tragedy.
“Whenever such a question is posed, there should be an answer. And the people of India want an answer,” BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy told reporters here.
On Sunday in a rally in Patna, Modi said: “Why are you quiet on Bhopal, Madam Sonia? The country wants to know who was the Maut ka Saudagar in Bhopal. Speak up. Break your silence. The country wants to know what happened in Bhopal.”
“Maut ka saudagar” barb was used by Gandhi in reference to Modi during her campaign for the Gujarat assembly polls in 2007. It referred to the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat in which over 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed.
Rudy said: “He (Modi) raised the right question. And there is no difference among other members of the party on the question posed.”
The Congress has criticised Modi for “dragging” Gandhi into the issue, saying the BJP leader practiced “disruptive, divisive and a low level of politics”.
“Narendra Modi has always practised disruptive, divisive and a low level of politics and we reject his suggestions with contempt,” Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan said Sunday when asked to react to Modi’s comments.
The BJP has attacked the Congress over the release of then Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson, an accused in the Bhopal gas leak case, saying the party should seek forgiveness from the people on the issue.
The Congress was in power in Madhya Pradesh and at the centre when the gas tragedy took place in Bhopal in 1984, killing and maiming thousands.