Cong, BJP show their colours

New Delhi: Discussion over the Communal Violence Bill took place in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday amidst huge uproar. While the Congress alleged that maximum cases of communal violence had come to light since the Bharatiya Janata Party led government had taken charge at the Centre, the latter blamed the Congress of acting at the behest of Pakistan.

"There were incidents that took place in Mumbai at Azad Maidan where police people were beaten up but the Congress never spoke on that issue. They also did not speak when Kashmiri Pandits were displaced from their homes. They are working on Pakistan Agenda," BJP MP Yogi Adityanath said.

Retaliating the BJP leader's statement, Congress said that they want secularism to be maintained in the country. "The government is taking incidents of communal violence lightly. They are not serious about tackling communal violence. For vote bank politics, the government is polarising the atmosphere," Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said in the House on Wednesday.

Kharge claimed that the government data shows that during May-June, there have been 113 incidents of communal violence. "Why have there been so many riots in the past 2-3 months? More than 600 riots have taken place in the last three months and state governments have been blamed. Who is behind these incidents? It can't only be a coincidence that riots are taking place only in poll-bound states," he said.

"There are by-elections in Uttar Pradesh, so some parties are trying to polarise the atmosphere. More than 50 per cent of the incidents have occurred in UP, Rajasthan and Gujarat," Kharge said adding that all parties should come together to fight against such these incidents.

Kharge also said that it was not just the Congress who is claiming vote bank politics as the reason behind these the violence, he said that intelligence, too, has been feeding that information. "I have the list of all incidents," Kharge said.

Replying to the allegations levelled by the Congress, Yogi Adityanath said that maximum incidents happened when BJP was not even in power at the Centre. Incidents occurred in Maharashtra where Congress was in power when 88 incidents happened.

He rather questioned why the Samajwadi party government in Uttar Pradesh was backing the "terrorists" and taking back the cases related to all the incidents which happened in UP.

Earlier during the day, Kharge and his party colleagues pointed to the absence of the Home Minister and the Ministers of State concerned, saying such an important matter "should not be taken lightly" by the government. "This is not good," the Congress leader said.

Though Ministers Smriti Irani, Harsimrat Kaur and VK Singh were present, the Congress members sought the presence of the Home Minister or the Minister of State and suggested that the House be adjourned for 30 minutes to ensure their presence.