India’s ruling Congress party on Tuesday called Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s tutelage of the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to victory in the Assembly elections a “mid-way accident” of reselling the communal card as “Gujarat pride” and hoped he does not carry this card “beyond the frontiers of Gujarat” if he has national ambitions.
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Atal Bihari Vajpayee could become the prime minister since he wore a liberal face and Modi has to play a similar positive role if he wants to enter national politics, Congress party’s media chairman Veerappa Moily said, in what he described as “advice from a brother”. He also appealed to Modi to discard the communal card now that he has won according to polls.
No Regrets: Moily, however, commended Modi for the corrective steps he took in denying the ticket to many sitting BJP MLAs to skirt the “anti-incumbency” while asserting that “we have no regrets for losing because we put up the fight against communalism”.
He pointed out that it is absolutely wrong to dub Congress pro-Muslim since it stands against fundamentalism of any religion, be it Hinduism or Islam. As a result of the Gujarat elections, he said the “process of polarisation will firm up as we want a more determined fight, keeping secularism and security of the country at the top”.
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