The burqa of secularism is much better than naked communalism: Congress

NEW DELHI: “The burqa of secularism is much better than naked communalism. While communalism divides, secularism binds,” said the Congress leadership on Monday in response to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s taunt that Congress, hit by charges of corruption and poor governance, was hiding behind the “burqa (veil) of secularism”.

“We will have to respond if the chairman of the campaign committee of BJP resorts to disinformation campaign and makes factually incorrect statements,” AICC General Secretary Ajay Maken said while targeting Modi.

Senior party leader Digvijaya Singh backed up the counter-attack by saying “secularism for Advaniji and BJP is one religion, one country and one culture. Congress believes that every religion is same and equal and everyone has the right to follow their religion.

BJP came to Modi’s defence saying he was alluding to Congress’ ‘pseudo-secularism’ and alleged the grand old party suffered from ‘Modi phobia and Namonia’.

Maken questioned Modi’s claims on the issue of development in Gujarat, saying the state during Modi’s tenure lagged behind on several development indicators. Charging Modi with presenting ‘erroneous’ and ‘false’ figures, Maken said that a person, who has “not been able to serve his own people properly and failed in his own state has no business telling the whole country what to do.

“I want to ask him what did he do in Gujarat that he keeps touring the whole country trying to give lessons to youths,” he said, adding that only a handful from Gujarat won medals in Olympic and very few tourists visited the state in ten years since Modi was Chief Minister. Maken also claimed the performance of the UPA was much better in all fields including GDP growth, tourism and education compared to the achievements in Gujarat during Modi’s tenure and the NDA rule at the Centre BJP accused Congress of lowering the level of discourse.

“Breaking its tradition of holding its routine press conference in the evening, it called a special press conference at noon with great enthusiasm,” said BJP spokesperson Captain Abhimanyu.

I&B Minister Manish Tewari said the choice before people was “an inclusive India or an India which is sectarian.