New Delhi, May 04: Even as the world and the US debated on Pakistan’s role in the killing and the hiding of Osama bin Laden, the two main political parties of India, the BJP and the Congress, took pot-shots at each other over India’s failure to get any forward action initiated on its most wanted accused operating from Pakistan soil.
Citing the US persistence in trailing of Osama-lead for 10 years and his killing in an operation, BJP president Nitin Gadkari in a meeting of party workers in Jaipur accused the Congress-led UPA Government of ‘appeasing’ terrorists in the name of secularism. “The US could never forget the September 11 attack. It found Osama in Pakistan and killed him. All these years the BJP said that the roots of terrorism were in Pakistan,” Gadkari said in Jaipur.
Comparing the tough US attitude to the Indian dithering on the Parliament attack accused Afzal Guru’s impending execution, the BJP chief added, “Will terrorism be appeased with secularism?” On the other hand, the Congress took a retaliatory dig at Gadkari and BJP veteran L K Advani.Party spokesperson, Manish Tewari, in the same vein questioned why the death sentences awarded to terrorists by the Supreme Court during Advani’s tenure as Home Minister not carried out. “Were they any less dreaded?” he said.
Also trying to assume a higher ground, Tewari moralised that the government expects backing from all political parties on the issue of national security. “It would be better to rise above cheap politics and support the government constructively on this issue,” Tewari said.
–Agencies