NEW DELHI: Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Monday led his party’s nationwide daylong fast against caste violence, communalism and the non-functioning of Parliament, blaming the ruling BJP, and to promote peace and harmony.
Congress workers are observing a daylong fast in all state and district headquarters to voice their protest against the BJP government and to promote communal harmony and peace across the country.
Gandhi sat for several hours at Rajghat and was joined by senior leaders, including Kamal Nath,
Mallikarjun Kharge, Sheila Dikshit, Ashok Gehlot, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken and the party’s communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala.
The 1984 anti-Sikh riots cast a shadow over the ‘Sadhbhawna Upwas’ (fast for harmony) with Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler, listed as accused for their alleged role in the riots, being asked to stay away from the stage where Gandhi and the other leaders were sitting. While Kumar left the venue soon thereafter, Tytler sat in the audience along with party workers.
Party leaders said the Congress wanted to debate issues of national importance such as the PNB bank scam, CBSE paper leak, alleged dilution of SC/ST Act, special status to AP and setting up of the Cauvery Water Management Board. “This is a fight for the ideology and values which India represents. We won’t allow the politics of hatred and division aimed at garnering votes to succeed,” Surjewala told reporters.
Alleging that the Modi govt’s politics of hatred and division had marred this country, he said, “Divide and rule is the policy, like the Britishers, of the present BJP government. Divide the society, divide religions, divide communities, divide castes, that is the DNA of the Modi government.”
