Thiruvananthapuram: Congress president Sonia Gandhi has lashed out at the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre saying that it was fomenting communal violence in different parts of the country with a motive to divide the people.
Addressing a party meeting of the the Kerala Pradesh Congress Commitee here on Tuesday, — her first such function after the Lok Sabha elections — Mrs Gandhi said that about 600 communal incidents had occurred in UP and an equal number in Maharashtra after the new dispensation took over at the centre.
“During the last 11 weeks after the BJP-led government came to power, there has been an increase in communal violence. When UPA-I and UPA-II were in power, hardly any such incidents had occurred,” she said and asked the Congressmen to work for a secular country. Her comments assume significant as they come close on the heels of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s statement that the communal conflicts in UP had been deliberately planned.
She also criticised the Centre for its failure to come out in expressing solidarity with people of Palestine, abandoning the policy followed by the country through decades.
“This shows the country‘s lack of response to the suffering of the people there and a betrayal of its tradition of solidarity with the Palestinians. India has always stood for peace and harmony between Israel and Palestine,” the Congress president said at the party function. She urged the party leaders to hold more campaigns to strengthen secularism as upheld by the Congress.
