Sachar report: BJP sets up panel to launch stir

The BJP has decided to launch a nationwide agitation to mobilise opinion against the implementation of the Sachar Committee...

The BJP has decided to launch a nationwide agitation to mobilise opinion against the implementation of the Sachar Committee report on the status of Muslims in the country. Addressing a meeting of national office-bearers of the party, President Rajnath Singh announced a committee under M Venkaiah Naidu for the purpose.

Referring to the Action Taken Report on the Sachar panel’s recommendations, Singh said “UPA’s lust for vote bank politics will result in creating an atmosphere of distrust and divisiveness in the country”. “We are now moving towards communal-based development expenditure and communal budgeting,” he said. Singh said the panel’s recommendations were discriminatory and the BJP would vehemently oppose and organise a national opinion against them.

Leader of the Opposition L K Advani said the “pathetic performance of the UPA over the last three years was primarily because their coalition was an opportunistic alliance in the name of providing stability”. Advani said the two major constituents of the coalition had diametrically opposite views on critical national issues like economics and foreign policy.

The BJP meeting took stock of the political situation in the country and decided to pull up its socks for the next general elections. The party felt that UPA’s policies on tackling terror were not linked to terror and security considerations but to the pursuit of vote bank policies. “Even terrorists are finding it easy to attack states ruled by pseudo secular parties since the security apparatus in these states has got political signals to go slow on searches, intelligence gathering, interrogations and even bursting modules that either organise terrorism or give logistical support to it,” a BJP statement said.