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BJP wants Congress to clarify Vaghela's reported remarks on Godhra

Shahid K Abbas in New Delhi

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday wanted the Congress party to clarify whether it associates itself with the its Gujarat unit chief Shankarsinh Vagehla's reported invitation to the United States International Commission on Religion to probe the incidents of human rights violation during the recent communal riots in the state.

BJP spokesman Arun Jaitley expressed serious reservations over Vaghela's 'objectionable statements', while leading a Congress party delegation to the United Nations in New York.

"We take a strong and serious exception to two of his statements made by him," Jaitley explained. "Firstly, his statement that Godhra may have been BJP's handiwork, and secondly, his assurance that if voted to power he would invite the USICR to probe the Gujarat violence."

He called both the reported comments of Vaghela as 'baseless'. "By propounding this new theory that Godhra may have been the handiwork of the BJP, the Congress party is directly helping those people who had masterminded or plotted the Godhra genocide."

He claimed the Congress was raising the Godhra issue to divert the focus of the people on the eve of the Gujarat assembly election.

He said that India was a 'mature nation', having a democratic polity. "We were never willing for a certificate from any country even during the recent Jammu and Kashmir election, which had attracted the entire international community."

Gujarat Elections 2002: The complete coverage

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