Did riots not take place during Cong rule, asks Rajnath

Bharatiya Janata Party President Rajnath Singh on Sunday reached out to the Muslim community saying his party is being defamed and maligned continuously over Gujarat riots under a "planned conspiracy".

He said the BJP did not believe in politics of divide and difference, and appealed the Muslim community to help in removing the "widespread confusion".

"The BJP is defamed and maligned continuously under a planned conspiracy. You all have seen our government in the Centre when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister. Who can say that we did politics by creating differences between humans," he asked a group of Muslim leaders who met him at the party office in New Delhi.

"Our opposition parties allege that the BJP is the party which creates enmity (nafrat) between Hindus and Muslims...I want to make an appeal to you people. If anyone can remove this widespread confusion, only you people can do this and this beginning should be made from Delhi," he said.

Stressing that BJP's ideology did not believe in dividing people, he said, "Our ideology and our political thought wants to give only this message that we don't want to create enmity between humans and we don't want to make our government by creating divide."

"If we want to make a government, then we want to base it on the politics of humanity and justice," Singh said. He also alleged that many more riots have taken place in the country during the Congress regimes.

"Did riots not take place during Congress rule? I can say with confidence that during Congress rule, many more riots took place...We have our government in several of the states...if a riot takes place anywhere, then it should not be assumed that BJP instigated the riot," Singh said.