Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Feb 8: Virtually launching the campaign for elections to the Lok Sabha, Congress president Sonia Gandhi Sunday accused the BJP-led NDA of causing "grave damage" to the country's secular fabric and economy and said the saffron party was "misleading" people in the name of Lord Rama.
Addressing the party's district and block-level office-bearers here, she charged Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with trying to make political capital out of terrorism and said "those who mobilise people on religious lines, mislead people in the name of Ram cannot become an effective force against terror." Gandhi's attack on BJP for using the name of Lord Rama comes a day after the saffron party chief Rajnath Singh again raked up the issue of building Ram temple in Ayodhya, apparently with an eye on the elections.
Accusing BJP of conducting "divisive politics", she said, "Grave damage has been done to our secular polity, society and economy by BJP-led NDA. Theirs is a voice of polarisation, of division, of hatred." The Congress, on the other hand, "is a voice of social justice, communal harmony and inclusiveness," she said.
Seeking to blunt BJP's allegation that the Congress is soft on terror, Gandhi said "a party which has lost two of its popular leaders to terrorism does not need a certificate from others".
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