Arun Jaitley slams government on communal violence bill issue

NEW DELHI: Attacking the Government for bringing the communal violence bill ahead of Lok Sabha polls, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley today said it was "highly discriminatory" and aimed at polarising the country on communal lines.

Jaitley, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, also lauded Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's opposition to the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill for being against the federal structure and for helping initiate a public debate on the draft bill.

"It appears that on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections, in order to polarize the country on communal lines, the Ministry of Home Affairs has again written a letter to the State Governments enclosing therewith revised draft of the Bill. There hasn't so far been adequate consultation with the stakeholders," he said in an article.

Jaitley said the Bill that was proposed two years ago by the National Integration Council chaired by Sonia Gandhi, was strongly opposed as 'law and order' and 'public order' are State subjects and enacting such a law in Parliament would be encroaching on the domain of States.

"The Bill was highly discriminatory since it discriminated against the majority and minority on basis of birth marks. It gave unguided power to authorities proposed to be created and loaded the redressal and accountability mechanism in favour of one community against the other on the basis of religion," he said.

He said various Chief Ministers in the meeting of National Integration Council in 2011 had also opposed the Bill on the ground that it would be destructive of the federal structure of Constitution.