SP playing ‘communal card’: BJP

Following SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav’s reassurance of his outside support to the ruling UPA ostensibly to not let “communal forces” get to power,the BJP on Sunday alleged that the SP was playing a “communal card” to save the government and highlighted a slew of communal violence in SP-ruled Uttar Pradesh recently to punch holes in Mulayam’s argument.

“Barring Assam and Uttar Pradesh,there is no communal strife in the country. There is no communalism especially in NDA-ruled states. People are forgetting the word communalism. But some are using it to serve their political interests,” BJP spokesperson Shahnawaj Hussain said on Sunday.

“Within six months of the SP rule,there were communal violence in Mathura,Allahabad,Pratapgarh,Bareli,Lucknow and now in Ghaziabad,” Hussain said.

He accused the SP of striking a “deal” with the ruling Congress during the 2008 trust vote over Indo-US nuclear deal and continuing to act as a saviour for the government since then.

“The Congress had a deal with the SP on n-deal and the deal is not over yet. That time also the SP saved the government and the case is in the court now,” Hussain said.