Narendra Modi "conspiracy" behind 2002 Gujarat riots: Digvijay Singh

NEW DELHI: Congress directed a fresh salvo at Narendra Modi as it accused the Gujarat Chief Minister of having had hatched the "conspiracy... to kill thousands" in the 2002 post-Godhara riots in his state.

Talking at a function to launch the memoirs of former MP Pappu Yadav, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh said that Modi was "involved in the conspiracy to kill thousands".

Hitting out at the media over its perception of Yadav, given the allegations the former MP from Bihar had faced of complicity in the murder of CPI leader Ajit Sarkar, Singh said that if they were so against somebody accused of one murder, "then what about that conspiracy due to which thousands of people were killed in 2002?"

Singh said that his fight with the BJP and RSS was an ideological one.

"I cannot compromise on this, whether some government comes or goes. I will not allow those to be strengthened who spread social disharmony in the name of religion," he said.

Speaking on the occasion, LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan said that BJP was just one of the wings of the "transmitter" called RSS. He also rued how, apart from in BJP and the Left, there was no ideological grooming in other parties unlike in the the past.

Striking a different note, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who, too, attended the book launch, urged academicians and members of civil society to draw peoples' attention to issues affecting the country, claiming that politicians were not taken seriously when they articulated social concerns.

"Whatever we may say, people think that we are saying it to benefit our parties," Mulayam explained.