Lucknow: The BJP Tuesday asked the union and the Uttar Pradesh governments to stop “issuing hollow statements” on the Muzaffarnagar riots and instead work to nail the guilty.
“I have called leaders from Uttar Pradesh to discuss the situation in the state and strategy for the coming polls,” party President Rajnath Singh told reporters here.
He said the Samajwadi Party government in the state was responsible for the situation there. He said: “If the Congress-led government at the centre would have intervened on time this (the riots) could have been avoided”.
The state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused the Congress and the Samajwadi Party governments of paying lip service to the violence in Muzaffaranagar that left 48 dead.
Both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav Monday said the guilty would be booked, but what stopped them from doing so, state BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak told IANS.
“Both these governments have intelligence set-ups with them and police. So instead of issuing hollow statements, they should act,” the spokesman said. The spokesman questioned the divergent views emerging in the Samajwadi Party on the Muzaffarnagar clashes.
“SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav said that the violent incidents in Muzaffarnagar were caste conflicts. However, Minority Affairs Minister Azam Khan said these were the worst communal riots in India after the 2002 Gujarat riots,” Pathak said.
He questioned what he called “efforts by the SP government to cover up its administrative and intelligence failure” and said such efforts will only increase the pain of the people displaced in the riots.
He said the Samajwadi Party and the Congress “should ensure that the guilty behind the riots are booked”, he said.
Earlier, state BJP president Laxmikant Bajpai dared the government to arrest party legislators booked by the district administration for their alleged role in the Muzaffarnagar riots.
“Two of our MLAs accused falsely by the police are attending the monsoon session of the assembly. I dare the government to arrest them,” Bajpai said, accusing the state government of falsely implicating the legislators. (IANS)