Lawmakers on Thursday criticised the felicitation of Muzaffarnagar legislators in Agra, Uttar Pradesh by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The legislators had been arrested for inciting the riots in Muzaffarnagar city that killed more than 50 people and displaced 41,000. They are now out on bail.
"This is the foreboding of something bad about to happen. People who are involved in this felicitation have the same mindset as people who felicitated the sole assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, Nathuram Godse. This is fascism and nothing else,"said Janata Dal (United) Party leader Ali Anwar.
According to government officials, the violence was triggered on August 27 when a Muslim youth was stabbed to death by two Hindu youths after being accused of sexually harassing their sister. A Muslim mob then stoned the two Hindus to death.
The legislators, Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana, were felicitated at the rally that was addressed by the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Balbir Punj, however, said: "It should be understood that parties which call themselves secular, they are the people who are seen inciting communal violence to the maximum level. And the riots that took place at Muzaffarnagar were a resultant of the policies of the regional Samajwadi Party (SP) and India's ruling Congress party which instigated communal violence. Both our legislators stood as rocks against communal violence. They helped in saving the innocent and the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wants to recognise and honour their efforts."
In year 1992, 2,000 people were killed in riots after the demolition of a 16th century mosque built near a sacred Hindu site in the Uttar Pradesh town of Ayodhya.
Hindu political mobilisation around that conflict thrust the BJP onto the national stage and played a role in bringing it to power in the late 1990s.
