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Impose President's rule in Gujarat for temple attack: Congress

Shahid K Abbas in New Delhi

The Congress party on Friday demanded the imposition of President's rule, under Article 356 of the Constitution, on Gujarat for 'failing to prevent' the terrorist attack on Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar.

Addressing the media in New Delhi, Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi described the attack as a security lapse on part of the Gujarat government, which, he said, was 'busy making arrangement' for the Gujarat Gaurav Yatra of Narendra Modi.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had accused the Congress president Sonia Gandh of 'soft-pedalling' on the issue of the attack on the temple.

Singhvi said his party was demanding imposition of President's rule so that the assembly election was 'held under an environment of safety and security'.

"Instead of appreciating our support, the BJP has chosen to attack the Congress president," another party spokesman Anand Sharma said. "This government cannot put a veil on its misdeeds by repeatedly shifting and changing its stances and statements."

Asked whether the party, which had earlier tried to distance itself from what the Congress Gujarat unit chief Shankar Sinh Vaghela was saying and his call for state bandh, was now endorsing his stand, Sharma said, "We had conveyed our anger. The bandh was to preempt the designs of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal."

He said the Congress had always treated the issue of terrorism as a national challenge.

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