BJP politicising communal violence bill, alleges Cong

Party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said BJP was trying to debunk the bill even before its birth.

“We are shocked at the BJP’s reaction. Firstly, nothing has been finalised. Opinions are being sought from diverse sections. The BJP is trying to further its communal agenda… Even trying to communalise the proposed bill. It is trying to do so by pre-emptive strike and debunking a draft bill under discussion…. seeking to abort it even before its birth,” Singhvi said. The Congress leader termed Arun Jaitley’s arguments that the draft will encourage minority communalism as “pernicious propaganda”.

Commenting on the draft of the bill intended to check communal violence, Jaitley on Thursday said that “this draft bill proceeds on a presumption that communal trouble is created only be members of the majority community and never by members of the minority community” and that it will "create communal disharmony".

Attacking the BJP in the context of Jaitley’s comments on the bill, Singhvi said: "The country knows which political party has communal agenda from its birth, continues to be bound by umbilical chord of the RSS and carries the shame of Gujarat, Karnataka and Babri Masjid with ease, sometimes with pride….It is going to be naturally worried, that's why the pre-emptive strike.”

Singhvi asserted that the bill has been prepared to preserve the “secular fabric” of the country and to counter feelings of insecurity that developed among the minority community during communal riots in the past. He said that Congress is committed in enacting the bill.

Notably, according to the draft of the bill cleared by NAC on Friday, the Centre will have the right to intervene in cases of communal or targeted violence by invoking a provision in Article 355 of the Constitution.