Digvijay likens RSS to Nazis, blames Advani for terror

Sunday December 19, 2010 07:23:52 PM, IANS

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh Sunday launched a fierce attack against Hindutva groups, comparing the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's "hatred" of Muslims to that harboured by the Nazis towards the Jews and claimed that the "roots of terrorism" in India lay in BJP leader L.K. Advani's controversial 1990 Rath Yatra.

"In the 1930s, Hitler's Nazi party attacked the Jews. Similarly, the RSS ideology wants to capture power by targeting Muslims under the garb of furthering nationalism," Digvijay Singh said at the Congress plenary session here.

The Congress general secretary alleged that the RSS had managed to "infiltrate" its cadres into many wings of the government like the bureaucracy, police and the army.

"The Malegoan blast, in which two army officers are accused, has proved that they have even started influencing people inside the army."

He said the RSS was "sowing the seeds of Muslim hatred" in the minds of the new generation through 'Shishu Mandir' schools and described it as the "the biggest danger for us".

The former Madhya Pradesh chief minister said the rise of the RSS-BJP "ideology of violence and hatred" posed the "biggest challenge" before the nation.

Singh, while seconding the political resolution moved by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee at the 83rd Congress plenary, said the BJP was "sowing the seeds of division" among the Hindus and Muslims and blamed Advani's Rath Yatra for giving birth to terrorism in India.

Singh also asked "why all people involved in various bombings like Malegaon, Mecca Masjid and Samjhauta Express had links with" the RSS.

Singh said that the "demolition of the Babri Masjid, the martyrdom of the Babri Masjid is the darkest patch in the history of India. The roots of terrorism in India lie in BJP leader L.K. Advani's rath yatra. That yatra created a gulf between Hindus and Muslims of India."

According to the Congress' political resolution, secularism, the lifeline of Indian democracy "is threatened by the ideology of the BJP and its affiliate organisations like the RSS". "The RSS and the VHP are insidious in their effort to break India."

He said when the BJP maintained that all Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims, "can we apply the same logic and say that all Hindus are not terrorists but all Hindu terrorists arrested in various blast cases are RSS activists".

The Congress leader said the nation needs to take steps to convert into trust the mistrust in the minds of Muslim brothers.

He said the Congress had demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into RSS activist Sunil Joshi's murder who "is the same person involved in many terror acts".

"I know (Joshi) because I am from MP. His name has come up during the investigations of the Samjhauta Express blast, Malegaon blast, Mecca Masjid blast, Ajmer Sharif blast... Why is it that all the accused in these terror acts have links with the RSS," he asked.

"Many of them have been arrested... They are all RSS activists," he added.

He congratulated Home Minister P. Chidambaram for handing over the Joshi murder case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Singh went on to accuse the BJP leaders of being at the bottom of twin scams - the 2G spectrum and the Commonwealth Games - that have dented the image of the Manmohan Singh government.

On BJP's corruption allegations, Singh said the roots of the 2G spectrum allocation scam originated under the BJP rule when the late Pramod Mahajan was telecom minister. It was under Mahajan's tenure that allocations of spectrum were made on first-come-first-served basis as against the prevailing auction of circles, he said.

He said the BJP's demand for a joint parliamentary committee probe into the 2008 spectrum allocation was "only to delay the ongoing investigations" by the Central Bureau of Investigation, Income Tax officials and the Enforcement Directorate.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were seated on the dias when Digvijay Singh spoke. There was huge applause from many delegates during his speech.
 

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