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Accusing the Congress of trying to communalise the upcoming general elections, BJP leader Arun Jaitley Monday said the party was trying to "deflect" the agenda from issues of governance.
"Faced with both the crisis of governance and a lack of leadership, the UPA's desperate strategy appears to be to deflect the agenda... Communalise the polity in the country and change the electoral agenda," Jaitley said in an article on the website of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Jaitley's attack came after Congress spokesperson Shakeel Ahmad blamed the 2002 Gujarat riots for the formation of Indian Mujahideen, a terror outfit suspected to be involved in several terror incidents since then.
Without naming Ahmad, Jaitley said that a "Congress party spokesperson went to the extraordinary extent of rationalizing the formation and existence of the Indian Mujahideen".
"Serious political observers are at a loss to understand why the official spokesperson of the Congress could have rationalized the formation of Indian Mujahideen in India, i.e. as an organization formed as a reaction against the riots in Gujarat in 2002," he said.
Jaitley, leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha, said the Congress fears the anti-incumbency factor after nearly 10 years of rule.
"The conventional Congress strategy has been that whenever they fail at governance, then they go back to the last resort i.e. the alleged charisma of the Congress party's first family. Unfortunately that charisma appears to be inadequate. The outgoing leadership of the UPA is perceived to be ineffective; the incoming are perceived to be non-leaders," he said.
He added that governance of the UPA should be the main agenda for the coming general election.
"All those who want to throw the UPA out of office must understand that their focus must remain on the issues of governance which the UPA will try to duck," he said.
In a post on micro-blogging site Twitter, Ahmad said: "Indian Mujahideen was formed after (the) Gujarat riots (of 2002), says NIA (National Investigation Agency) in its charge sheet. (But) Even now BJP and RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) will not desist from their communal politics."
He Monday tweeted he was "surprised by the hype in media on my tweet of 21st July regarding NIA's (National Investigation Agency) charge sheet".
