Gujarat BJP today sharply reacted over Rahul Gandhi's remark about Narendra Modi's role in 2002 riots saying it was an attempt by the Congress to garner Muslim votes.
"Instead of giving answers about their failures in the last 10 years, Congress leaders are deliberately invoking riot issue to get Muslim votes in the election," said Harshad Patel, media convener of Gujarat BJP.
In an interview to PTI today, Rahul hit out at BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate demanding "legal accountability" for the "clear and inexcusable failure" of governance during the 2002 Gujarat riots and dismissed talk of clean chit to him as "politically expedient" but "far too premature".
"As you know, the SIT report had been seriously questioned by a number of credible experts. Grave flaws have been pointed out in the functioning of the SIT. The acceptance of the flawed SIT report by the lowest court has not yet been subjected to judicial scrutiny by higher courts," he had said.
Objecting to Rahul's view about the SIT clean chit to Modi, Patel said, "It is unfortunate that Congress is doubting the credibility of SIT. It shows that Congress is trying hard to divert the election agenda towards communal politics instead of facing Modi over development issues."
In the interview, Rahul also said that specific allegations "pointing to Modi's responsibility" in the riots were yet to be adequately probed.
He further went on saying that talk of clean chit to Modi was "politically expedient", but "far too premature". He also alleged that SIT report giving clean chit to Modi has been seriously questioned by a number of "credible experts".
However, BJP registered a strong protest against Rahul by putting him in the dock over his own remarks about 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
"Rahul himself admitted during a previous interview that some Congress leaders were involved in those riots. He must come clean on that issue first before pointing figures on others," said Patel.
