Not appropriate for Centre to wash its hands of: Congress leader Sachin Pilot

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Sachin Pilot today criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks that his government had nothing to do with the Dadri lynching and cancellation of Ghulam Ali's Mumbai concert, saying it is not appropriate for the Centre to wash its hands of by saying that it had no role to play.

"I believe it is not appropriate to wash your hands by saying the new government has no role to play," Pilot said.

Accusing the opposition of indulging in pseudo secularism and politics of polarisation, Modi has described the Dadri lynching incident and the cancellation of Pakistani ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali's concert in Mumbai as "unfortunate", but said his government has nothing to do with them.

"I think they are trying to trivialise the issue. I think the unfortunate lynching and the death of the gentleman in Dadri is symbolic of the systematic decay in our social fabric that is being accentuated by the new government," he said.

Referring to the situation in Mumbai, where Ali's concert was cancelled and ink smeared on ORF chief Sudheendra Kulkarni over book launch event of former Pakistani foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, Pilot said it appears that BJP-led government is facing all sorts of issues from its own allies, apparently referring to Shiv Sena.

"But the fact that we are becoming slowly an intolerant society, as the world is viewing is, is very unfortunate," he said.

A former Union Minister, Pilot said that the government of the day is responsible to keep that consciousness alive. "You can't have divisive forces become so strong that they overcome all ethos of our cultural heritage, of our history, of our societal integrity," he said.

"It's not just about politics, it's about the country. What are the kind of ideologies that we are propagating? What are the kind of people who are in position of power, whose words count for and they are somehow trying to divide the secular thinking of our nation and that I think is unacceptable to India," he said.