Accusing BJP of fanning communal flames, Rahul Gandhi today said the party's "politics of hatred" was damaging the country's fabric and apprehended he may also be assassinated like his grandmother and father, who had fallen victim to it.
Striking an emotional chord, the Congress Vice President said that when he visited riot-hit Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh sometime back and talked to both Hindus and Muslims, he could see his own story in their words.
"I was seeing my face in their grief. That is why I am against their (BJP's) politics....What do they do. They will put Muzaffarnagar on fire, Gujarat on fire, UP on fire and Kashmir on fire and then you and we will have to douse that. This damages the country," Gandhi said.
He said that such politics leads to anger and resentment and precious lives are lost in violence.
"My grandmother was killed. My father was assassinated and perhaps I may also be killed one day. I am not bothered. I had to tell you what I felt from the heart," Gandhi said and vowed to oppose BJP's politics.
Gandhi, whose grandmother Indira Gandhi was killed by her Sikh bodyguards during the militancy days in Punjab and father Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by LTTE, also narrated an incident of an MLA from Punjab visiting his office recently and telling him that had they met 20 years ago, he would have killed the Congress Vice President due to anger.
"Anybody can get angry. The anger is deliberately put into people. Politicians do it. Interested party does it. And then the common man, who is hurt has to carry this anger with him. He moves everywhere with this anger. That is why I am against the politics of BJP. Because what they do is that they hurt (people) for political gains."
He told the gathering, which included a number of Sikhs, that after the assassination of her grandmother, he came to know that the assassins Satwant Singh and Beant Singh wanted lob a grenade at her grandmother on Diwali.
Gandhi said it took him 10 15 years to put aside his anger against his friends Beant Singh and Satwant Singh, who were bodyguards of his grandmother.
