Disgruntled RSS, BJP workers behind violence in MP: Congress

BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh unit of Congress today alleged that disgruntled workers of BJP and RSS are provoking the farmers and are responsible for the violence during the ongoing agitation.

The party rejected Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's claim that Congress was instigating the violence.

"Congress subscribes to Mahatma Gandhi's tenet of non-violence and the party can never be involved in any kind of violence," state Congress chief Arun Yadav and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Ajay Singh said at a press conference here.

"Disgruntled cadres of RSS and BJP incited the farmers and these people are responsible for the violence," Yadav said, displaying pictures purportedly showing a BJP leader from Betma distributing sticks to his supporters.

"Congress was nowhere in the picture when the chief minister hammered out a pact with farmers' leaders in Ujjain. But when the farmers were shot dead (in Mandsaur district), the CM started dragging Congress into the controversy and made allegations," Ajay Singh said.

If the CM was serious about the agitation, he should have called an all-party meeting, he added.

Singh also said that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweets on every small issue, but is tight-lipped on the death of farmers in police firing in Mandsaur.

Appealing the protesters to conduct the agitation in a peaceful way, the Congress leaders demanded that criminal cases filed against farmers during the agitation be withdrawn.

Singh also said that the claim that farmers are happy (under BJP rule) has proven to be a mere propaganda with the current agitation.

Chouhan and his ministers lack administrative skills, he said.

"The home minister first claimed that farmers were not killed in police firing. Later he accepted that farmers were killed in police firing. This shows the government wanted to shrug off the issue," Singh said.