GANDHINAGAR, Aug 11: Even as a team of the National Minorities Commission is visiting the State to study recent incidents of harassment and intimidation of minorities, the BJP and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad appear determined to do to the commission what Maharashtra Chief Minister Manohar Joshi did to the Srikrishna Commission last week.Unlike Joshi, however, the BJP and VHP seem to have no patience to wait for the commission to complete the exercise and submit report. Daily, they are denouncing the commission, describing it as ``anti-Hindu'' and the visit ``politically motivated'', undertaken ``at the instigation of Congress president Sonia Gandhi''.The team, which arrived here on a five-day visit on Sunday, is going about its job quietly, visiting the trouble spots, meeting officers, leaders of political parties and minority organisations, and receiving representations. They have visited Kapadvanj and Surat and are scheduled to visit Rajkot before leaving for Delhi on Thursday.Interestingly, while State BJP president Rajendrasinh Rana and other leaders of the organisational wing have been trenchant in their criticism of the commission, the Government is extending it all facilities. Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, asked about the criticism of the commission by his partymen and VHP, refused to comment, saying, ``They do not belong to the Government''.But Opposition leaders and social activists see a design in the BJP and VHP leaders' campaign.They regard it as an attempt to influence the commission, or hide their guilt, or prepare the ground for the rejection of the report, knowing it could not be favourable to them or the government.They point out that Director General of Police C P Singh had recently blamed the VHP and Bajrang Dal for most of the incidents, saying their activists were taking the law into their hands. He had also said that many of the incidents took place because of ``aggressive intervention'' by VHP and Bajrang Dal activists in inter-religious marriages.The first shot against the commission was fired by BJP spokesman Bharat Pandya, who said that before sending a team, the commission should have called for a report from the government. Therefore, the visit was uncalled for, he said. Next, Rana described the visit as politically motivated.Rana, as also VHP general secretary Pravin Togadia, linked the visit to ``a Congress conspiracy'' to create communal violence. Togadia also called the commission ``anti-Hindu'' and said the VHP would boycott the team. BJP national general secretary Tanvir Ahmed alleged that the commission had sent the team at Sonia Gandhi's instance.For Prakash Shah, Convener of the Movement for Secular Democracy, the BJP leaders' outpourings against the commission are a ``reflection of their mindset''. Pointing out that the commission was VHP, Bajrang Dal set to do a JoshiÃ?being condemned even before it had submitted report, he said, ``It's not done''. Another social activist felt the BJP campaign appeared ``calculated to influence the commission''.BJP leaders claim that the incidents in the State were isolated and minor in nature. They also argue that the visit of the commission would only worsen the situation. But former chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Party leader Dilip Parikh wondered why the BJP leaders were afraid of a team which had come on a fact-finding mission.Congress general secretary Irshad Mirza echoed similar views: ``Why is the BJP so scared if it has nothing to hide?'' Mirza said the BJP was acting as if the commission had done something terribly wrong, but this was not the first time that the commission was visiting a State. He dismissed the charge of a Congress gameplan to incite communal trouble as a red-herring to distract the people's attention from ``the BJP's own deeds''.
