Secularism will face a big threat if BJP comes to power: P Chidambaram

Puducherry: Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram said secularism would face a big threat if the BJP came to power in the Lok Sabha polls.

Canvassing for Congress nominee and his ministerial colleague V Narayanasamy in the lone Lok Sabha seat in the Union Territory on Sunday, he urged the voters to bear in mind that only Congress rule at the Centre would ensure protection of secularism and communal harmony in the country.

"Electorate should be wary of exercising their franchise as any opportunity for the BJP to form the government would mean big threat to the secularism and the country would also be shattered to hundreds of pieces," he told an election rally.

Maintaining that only Congress had been able to form a stable government at the Centre, he said it took care of all sections of people.

The schemes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment, the Sethusamudram canal project and the various other developmental schemes evolved and implemented by the Congress rule across the country would be in jeopardy if the BJP was elected to form the government, he claimed.

He also flayed the BJP for not making any reference to the concept of reservation in its poll manifesto. Turning to local politics, Chidambaram expressed pity on Chief Minister and AINRC founder leader N Rangasamy for forging an alliance with the BJP for the polls.

Rangasamy could have walked out of the Congress and floated a new outfit. "This is not a great crime on his part.

But the alliance Rangasamy had worked out with BJP is unacceptable," he added.

The Finance Minister also rejected as "wrong" Rangasamy's allegation that the Centre had denied sufficient funds for the Union Territory.

Per capita plan allocation based on the size of population of Puducherry ran to more than Rs 1,000 crores per year and this was biggest allocation in the country as a whole, he said.