New Delhi, Jul 14 (NIE): A day after Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman accused the Congress of spreading communal disharmony in the country ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram took a jibe at the minister saying she has all the time in the world to inquire into the religious affiliations of parties and persons. The former finance minister took to Twitter to counter her accusations and said, “After taming Pakistan, eliminating terrorism, stopping infiltration and acquiring Rafale aircraft, the Defence Minister has all the time in the world to inquire into the religious affiliations of parties and persons!”
In another tweet, Chidambaram asked the defence minister to ‘share the secret info on plans to incite riots’ with the Home Minister.
He was responding to Sitharaman’s remarks on Friday blaming the Congress party of playing up the religion card ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In her statement to reporters, she had said, “Congress party is playing a dangerous game, playing communal division, playing up the card of religion. It is frightening that it may lead to the kind of division and kind of communal disharmony that prevailed during the 1947 partition. Congress party shall be solely responsible if any disharmony plays out between now and the 2019 elections.”
She further added: “We think Congress is getting back at this Divide India mindset. It is clear that 2019 election, they want to contest it at dharm ki aadhaar par (on the basis of religion). Its foundation has been laid.”
The BJP leader had quoted a report from Inquilab, alleging that Congress president Rahul Gandhi had in an interaction with Muslim intellectuals on Wednesday told the gathering that “Congress is a Muslim party”.
Sitharaman also attacked the Congress saying that earlier the party had claimed that Gandhi was a janeu-dhari (one who wears the sacred thread). But she pointed out that, “You can’t be janeu-dhari at one point and Muslim-dhari at another… This is playing with the people’s trust.”
Meanwhile, historian Syed Irfan Habib, who was present at the gathering of Muslim intellectuals on Wednesday, denied that the Rahul Gandhi made any such remark. “There was no issue of this nature raised, neither by the people present over there nor by Rahul Gandhi himself. It is just a figment of imagination of all those who want to give it a twist because they are doing it for their own political advantage. There is nothing at all. There is no basis at all,” Habib had told The Indian Express.
The Congress had reacted sharply to Sitharaman’s comments and accused her of saying things that create tension in the society and avoiding real issues. Congress spokesperson Sushmita Dev said, “Sitharaman is a responsible Defence Minister and her statement today is clearly in line with Prime Minister Modi’s agenda of polarising this country. We are days away from the monsoon session of Parliament where the government has absolutely no answers about the complete mess they have made in J&K, no answers on price rise, fuel price hikes and agrarian distress, it is expected of the Defence Minister to take up issues unnecessarily to create a controversy and move away from the real issues.”