Ahmedabad: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) owned up responsibility for failure in
preventing the Godhra carnage and the Akshardham terrorist strike even as it charged
the Congress with "sowing and growing seeds of divisive forces".
"We take responsibility for whatever happened at Godhra and Akshardham. We are not
running away from it. There is nothing to hide but it takes time to rectify mistakes
committed over the past 50 years," party president Venkaiah
Naidu told reporters in response to a question on why these incidents took place
during the BJP rule.
Naidu, who is in Ahmedabad to launch the second phase of the party's campaign for
the crucial December 12 polls, also defended the party raising the Godhra issue "if
Congress, communists, and other secularists can rake up every year the matter of
demolition of the Babri structure even years after the incident".
"The opposition has objection to our raising an issue in the elections which
happened eight months back, but what is the rationale behind their observing
December 6, in which no one died, every year except to take political advantage?
This is a classic case of double standards," he said.
Naidu said the Congress has not bothered to even give a clarification with regard to
the allegation of its involvement in the Godhra carnage.
Reacting to Congress president Sonia Gandhi's recent statement that BJP had created
an atmosphere of fear in the state, Naidu charged the party has "sown and grown
seeds of divisive forces" and said its hands were "stained with blood".
PTI
