(Image Credit: News Arena)
NEW DELHI: Congress on Friday accused the BJP of diverting the issue of voter theft through selectively leaking parts of Yasin Malik's affidavit to malign the image of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as it claimed to thank him for meeting LeT founder Hafiz Saeed and asked the saffron party about the meeting of RSS in 2011 with the terrorist.
Slamming the BJP, Congress media and publicity department chairperson Pawan Khera in a post on X, said, "Toolkit to distract from Vote chori exposed: Since morning, the BJP is selectively leaking parts of Yasin Malik’s affidavit to malign the image of Dr Manmohan Singh and the UPA."
Khera, who is also a CWC member said that a Prime Minister - in this case, Dr. Manmohan Singh - extending courtesy to someone claiming to pursue peace should not raise eyebrows.
"What truly shocks is that - Why was the RSS meeting Yasin Malik in 2011? The BJP was not even in power then. Why was BJP-RSS affiliated think-tank - Vivekananda Foundation’s leadership interacting with Yasin Malik? Is it true that during the Vajpayee era, Malik was made to speak over the phone to Dhirubhai Ambani, through an intermediary?" Khera asked.
He also said that instead of feigning outrage at Dr Singh’s civility, BJP would do well to revisit history.
Khera pointed out: "In May 2007, Yasin Malik was preparing to launch his Safar-e-Azadi (March for Freedom). Arrested on May 4, he began an indefinite hunger strike demanding the right to proceed. It was Atal Bihari Vajpayee who intervened with the UPA government and made sure that the March was allowed to take place.
"From (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee Ji to Manmohan Singh Ji, when the state policy was dialogue and engagement, both the governments met all sorts of stakeholders. If Dr. Singh’s courtesy is to be questioned, perhaps BJP should explain Vajpayee Ji’s smiling photo-op with the Hurriyat leadership, or Advani Ji’s solemn pilgrimage to Jinnah’s grave in Karachi. Otherwise, we would all like to enjoy their silence for once," he said.
The remarks from the Congress leader came after BJP's IT cell chief Amit Malviya shared terrorist Yasin Malik’s affidavit in the Delhi High Court, in which he stated that Indian intelligence officials asked him to meet Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Saeed in Pakistan in 2006.
In a post on X, tagging a copy of the affidavit of Yasin Malik, Malviya said, " Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) terrorist Yasin Malik, serving a life sentence in a terror-funding case, has made a shocking claim. In an affidavit filed in the Delhi High Court on August 25, Malik says he met Lashkar-e-Taiba founder and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed in Pakistan in 2006. The meeting was not his independent initiative but was arranged at the request of senior Indian intelligence officials as part of a back-channel peace process. After the meeting, then-PM Manmohan Singh personally thanked and expressed gratitude to him".
Malviya also alleged "Yasin Malik is a hardened terrorist who is guilty of gunning down three Air Force personnel in uniform. This amounts to waging war against the state, and he must be subjected to the full force of the law".
