BJP leader and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s offensive against the Congress for a comment made by party chief Rahul Gandhi at a meeting with Muslim intellectuals has drawn a strong rebuttal from the Congress. Coming out in defence of Gandhi, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Saturday took to Twitter saying, Sitharaman has “all the time” to look into the religious affiliations of people.
“After taming Pakistan, eliminating terrorism, stopping infiltration and acquiring Rafale aircraft, the Defence Minister has all the time in the world to inquire into the religious affiliations of parties and persons! [sic],” read
Chidambaram’s first tweet. “The Defence Minister says there are ‘plans to incite riots in the run-up to Lok Sabha election’. She should share her secret (?) information with the Home Minister [sic],” read the other.
Sitharaman had on Friday, cited a report from an Urdu daily and said that the Congress party is “a party of Muslims”. She accused the Congress of playing the religion card and said that it could lead to communal disharmony. “Rahul became a janeu-dhaari during the Karnataka Assembly elections and now he has become a Muslim-dhaari … The Congress party shall be solely responsible if any disharmony plays out between now and the 2019 polls,” she had said.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, tweeted a video on himself, saying that the BJP is afraid of a defeat in the coming elections. He said that PM Modi has now found refuge in lies. “The truth is that blinded by hate for the Congress and for Rahulji, Modiji has now become Dhritarashtra. He’s riding on a tide of jumlas and has now forgotten that he is the prime minister,” he said.
As the Congress and BJP leaders continued to take digs at each other on Friday, the JD(U) doled out free advice to them. Without directly naming them, the JD(U) said controversies around communal issues would drown important issues like economic development on social media.
