Author: Pioneer News Service
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: March 27, 2009
URL: http://dailypioneer.com/165454/Cong-joins-hands-with-Muslim-body.html
UP outfit leader had offered Rs 25 crore for
Bush's head
Congress might have termed Varun Gandhi's
inflammatory speeches in Pilibhit as violent and communal, but on Thursday
the party saw nothing wrong in aligning with a radical Muslim outfit, Ittehad-e-Millat
Council in Uttar Pradesh whose president had announced a reward of Rs 25 crore
on former US President George Bush's head.
Ittehad-e-Millat Council will support Congress
in the parliamentary elections and the parties would have a seat-sharing arrangement
in the State Assembly election slated for 2012. The parties will also have
joint campaigning for parliamentary elections.
Ittehad-e-Millat Council president M Tauqeer
Raza Khan kicked up a controversy in 2006 when he announced a reward of Rs
25 crore to anyone who got him the head of Bush. Raza was provoked over publication
of "objectionable" cartoon of Prophet Mohammed by a Danish artist.
The cartoon had angered Muslims all across the world. Khan had blamed Bush
for protecting and encouraging people like the Danish cartoonist and appealed
to every Muslim to contribute Re 1 for the award. Bush, who is considered
a great friend of India by Congress-led UPA Government, was in India at that
time.
As Congress general secretary in-charge of
UP Digvijay Singh announced the alliance with Ittehad-e-Millat Council at
party headquarters here on Thursday, he faced a barrage of questions on whether
Congress supported the Muslim outfit's ideology. At first, Singh tried to
brush these remarks under the carpet by claiming that these were not made
by Khan. However, Khan himself agreed that he had made those remarks at that
time.
The Congress was red-faced as it claimed that
it had not extensively vetted Ittehad-e-Millat Council's background. Digvijay
Singh tried to save face by saying: "They have extended support to us.
But we don't subscribe to those views."
When asked how it could join hands with an
outfit which has been propagating violence when Congress has been criticising
Varun Gandhi for giving such inflammatory speeches, Singh said: "What
views were expressed by Ittehad-e-Millat Council's president were before he
joined hands with Congress. Under no condition do we subscribe to any ideology
or any thought which is communal in nature or which propagates violence."
Singh tried to play down the issue by feigning
ignorance to Raza's controversial remarks which occupied media front pages
for days. "Frankly, I didn't know. Fanatic religious fundamentalism is
something we have always opposed. Some statement might have been made in an
emotionally surcharged environment but that cannot be a considered ideology
of a party," he said.
