Masjid Is Far | Saba Naqvi

How parties are increasingly pulling out the communal card

• Congressman Shakeel Ahmed tweets that ‘Indian Mujahideen’ had formed as a reaction to 1992’s Babri demolition, 2002 Gujarat riots. Cong communalising 2014 polls, says Arun Jaitley.
• Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh asks if there’s a link between Narendra Modi telling BJP men to teach Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar a lesson and blasts at temple in Gaya.
• Gujarat CM and BJP poll panel chief Narendra Modi makes “kutte ke bachche” faux pas vis-a-vis Muslim riots victims. Attacks Cong for hiding behind the “burqa of secul­arism”.
• BJP has vowed to make 2008 killing of VHP leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati in Kandhamal a poll issue in 2014. Saraswati’s killing  led to riots, leaving 42 people dead.
• Union minister K. Rehman Khan wants quota for Muslims despite SC fiat; says Congress fearful of making decisions favouring Muslims due to fear of RSS propaganda of “minor­ity appe­asement”.
• Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan issues fresh notification to introduce Bhagwad Gita in madrasas. Goes back on it following uproar in state going to poll in 2013-end.
• Row over the Charminar in Hyderabad after a temple mysteriou­sly springs up next to the iconic structure. MIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi arrested for hate speech caught on video.
• Punjab BJP says Congress playing communal card for raising issue of Sikh farmers invited to Gujarat to develop land for agriculture but now being asked to give up land  to state.
• Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan acknowledges that a section of the state’s police are ‘communal’ after video footage shows cops attacking Mus­lims, looting shops in Dhule.
• West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee accused of minority appeasement for introducing allowances for imams and muezzins, and including Muslims in the OBC category.
• ‘National outrage’ after Bahujan Samaj Party MP Shafique-ur-Rehman Barq walks out of Lok Sabha during the rendition of  national song ‘Vande Mataram’.
• Congress accuses BJP of communalising anti-migrant violence in Assam, points out that there are Hindu illegal migrants as well. Minorities panel charged with ignoring Bodos who are Christian.

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Masjid Is Far | Saba Naqvi