Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today accused the Congress of using terrorism for votebank politics and slammed its leader P Chidambaram for his comments on Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
"Does Afzal Guru has religion? Terrorism has no religion. He is a terrorist. A terrorist is a terrorist. He has no language, no religion. But unfortunately, treating minorities as a vote bank. Congress is using even terrorism for vote bank politics," he told reporters here.
He cited similar controversies like the Ishrat Jahan and Batla House encounters to target the Congress.
He referred to former Union Home Secretary G K Pillai's statement that the controversial change in the Ishrat Jahan case affidavit was done at the "political level" to flay the Congress leader.
"These revelations clearly show the dirty politics of UPA and Congress party that they are ready to compromise even national security to continue their political vendetta against their rivals," Naidu said.
Accused in Mumbai blast case David Headley confirmed Ishrat Jahan was terrorist and LeT website also had condoled her death, he said. An earlier affidavit by the Centre had said she was a terrorist. However, the subsequent affidavit was changed, he said, adding, "they demoralised the CBI, IB."
Similarly, former Union Minister Salman Kurshid had said in 2012 that Sonia Gandhi was "very sad" over the encounter.
"After four years (of Batla House encounter), Congress tried to take advantage in elections and Salman Kurshid said during poll campaign that Sonia Gandhiji was very sad over the encounter," Naidu said.
"To use that for sympathy is an insult to minorities. What to do, minorities have nothing to do with that encounter or terrorism," he said.
Now it is the turn of former Union Home and Finance Minister P Chidambaram, he said. "Having been at the helm of affairs, the former Home Minister, and supposed to be the most intelligent person in Congress party finds fault with Supreme Court (over Afzal Guru's hanging). He is a leading lawyer, finds fault with Supreme Court with the hanging on Afzal Guru," he alleged.
Claiming to quote Chidambaram, he said the former Minister had said that "perhaps Afzal Guru's hanging was not a correct decision."
"The highest court to anybody's knowledge is the Supreme Court. But there is another Supreme Court of Congress party presided by Chidambaram which says Afzal Guru's hanging was not a correct decision.
Quoting anti-Indian slogans allegedly raised in JNU, Naidu
said "they say justice is not done to Afzal Guru as if he is their Guru, they are extending solidarity with the people who are raising slogans like Maqbool Bhat Zindabad, how can anybody express solidarity with such people and that is the question?."
On February 25, Chidambaram had told an English daily that "one can hold an honest opinion that the case was not correctly decided and the degree of involvement of Afzal Guru was not correctly assessed."
"If someone holds that opinion, he doesn't become an anti-national. He's just holding a different opinion," he had said.
Afzal Guru's wife Tabasum Guru had dismissed the view as "too late and aimed at vote bank politics."
Distancing itself from Chidambaram's views, Congress had said, the decision of the Supreme Court was final.
"It is futile to reopen this debate since the matter has attained judicial finality. Every citizen and instrumentality of the government is bound in law to accept the judgment of the final court," party spokesman Ashwani Kumar had said.
On Chidambaram's view that there was a sense of insecurity among minorities, Naidu said, "Is Mr Chidambaram pose himself as champion of minorities? Chidambaramji, it is the Congress which is feeling insecure and hence creating fear psychosis among minorities spoiling the social fabric of the country."
Naidu alleged that Congress was always soft on terrorists and hard on nationalists.
"They abolished TADA Act. They gave certificate to Bhindranwale, encouraged and later condemned him, made him villain and sent army to Golden Temple.
On a query about funding of the projects, Naidu said most
of the finances have been tied up with various funding agencies like Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), World Bank and Asian Development Bank.
He, however, said the funding agencies wanted the assurance that the "system would be stable" and they will be get their money back. "Nobody is going to do charity. The payment is assured with providing credit ratings to the cities," he said.
Underlining that lots of foreign entities have evinced interest to invest in smart city projects, he said, "34 ambassadors or ministers who have met me from different countries have shown their keen interest to invest in smart cities."
Asked about allegation that smart cities are against slum dwellers, Naidu said, "These are all meaningless allegation. You want slum dwellers to be slum dwellers so that they can be vote dwellers for you forever."
He said the slum dwellers are also in the scheme of things in the smart city with housing being an important integral part of the mission.
"What is smart city? Smart city is providing better life condition to the people, improving their living standards through transforming cities," he said.
Naidu says the smart city concept has caught the "imagination of the people" and cities are competing with each other to improve in the set of parameters.
"To create smart cities, you need smart people. Smart not in height, weight, coat, boot, soot but in vision and action. Now it (the smart city concept) has caught the imagination of the people and cities are trying to improve themselves, with an element of competition, to improve in the set of parameters," he said.
Terming the mission as the "flavour of the season", he says several people, including MPs, have urged him to sanction smart cities for their regions.
On solid waste management, Naidu says piling heaps of garbage in cities is not only a visual nuisance but has huge health implications.
"To address this problem, we are focusing on door-to-door collection of solid waste, its transportation and scientific processing. About 65 million tones of solid waste in generated every year in our cities and towns.
"The target is make about 50 lakh tones of compost and generate over 400 MW of electricity every year from this solid waste," he says.
