'Politics over fight against terror anti-national'

Without naming Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena, Congress on Monday stepped up its attacks on the two parties for their remarks over the Pune blast, saying any politicisation or communalisation of the fight against terror is anti-national.

"It is imprudent, inadvisable and irresponsible to second-guess an investigation and arrive at pre-determined conclusion by jumping the gun," party spokesperson Manish Tiwari said when asked to comment on BJP's remark on the incident.

When asked how does the party view the main opposition party's reaction following the Pune blast, he said, "Any politicisation or communalisation of the fight against terror is definitely anti-national."

The Congress' reaction came after BJP opposed the recent initiative to resume the Indo-Pak composite dialogue and Shiv Sena's attack on the Maharashtra government after yesterday's blast.

BJP's leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitely criticised the UPA government for not taking 'the nation, Parliament or even the Congress' into confidence before deciding on resumption of the dialogue.

He said as long as the terror infrastructure in Pakistan is not dismantled and Pakistan does not stop sponsoring terror from its soil, the composite dialogue should not resume.

The Congress leader also said, "Let the investigation fructify ... if any inferences need to be drawn, we are confident that the government would factor them in and arrive at the appropriate decision."

To a question whether the blast will have any impact on the resumption of Indo-Pak dialogue, he said, "That is for the government to take decision."

Earlier, reacting to attacks on his party by BJP and Shiv Sena, party spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed said 'unfortunately, a few political parties are trying to extract political mileage out of this unfortunate incident.'

Govt failed to prevent Pune blast despite intel reports: BJP

Strongly reacting to Union Home Minister P Chidambarm's statement denying any intelligence lapse behind the Pune blast, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj today said the failure actually was on the part of the government.

"The government had intelligence reports indicating the vulnerability of the Koregaon Park area but it could not prevent the terror attack on innocent people", Swaraj, who was accompanied by BJP President Nitin Gadkari, told mediapersons.

Both the leaders, who visited the blast site and the injured in hospitals, said the Pradhan Committee report on the 26/11 attack too went unheeded.

They said the modus operandi of the Pune blast resembled the Mumbai attacks engineered by arrested Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Headley who was targeting foreign nationals in India to make an international impact.

On the proposed Indo-Pak talks, the two BJP leaders said the government had taken a 'U' turn changing its earlier stand on the issue without taking Parliament into confidence.

Sushma also objected to the argument that the Pune blast was designed to thwart the proposed parleys saying the attack had nothing to do with foreign secretary-level interaction.

"We are firmly against holding of the February 25 talks which have been rendered meaningless in the wake of the barbaric terror attack in Pune," Swaraj asserted.

For more on the Pune blast, click here!