Abstaining Digvijay Woos Muslim UP
With elections looming large, AICC general secretary and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Digvijay Singh, on Saturday apologized to minority Muslims over the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, an incident that changed the course of politics in Uttar Pradesh, arguably, the country’s most important electoral battleground.
While attempting to bring back minority voters to the Congress fold, Singh attributed the guilt to the fact that his party – the Congress – was in power at the center at the time of the incident.
“We would once again like to say sorry to the nation for the demolition of the Babri Masjid as at that time the PV Narasimha Rao led-Congress was in power,” said Singh.
Singh added that his party would rook no association with former BJP leader Kalyan Singh, who was the chief minister of UP at the time the mosque was demolished.
Singh was addressing a rally in Lucknow, organised by the state Congress minority cell to launch a belated tirade against the BSP state government for failing to utilize the funds allocated by the central government for several schemes for the minorities.
“The central government had sanctioned Rs 1,300 crore to the state government for various schemes for the minorities. However, the fund has not yet been utilised and will lapse on March 31,” Singh was quoted as saying by IBNLive.
Singh, currently under a self-imposed 10 year exile from electoral politics, is in-charge of party affairs for UP, a state that has meted out successive electoral drubbings to the Congress since it lost its traditional Muslim voters to other secular parties like the SP and BSP after the demolition of the Ayodhya structure that triggered widespread communal violence in the country.
Whether or not Singh’s apology finds takers amongst the state’s victory voting Muslims will soon be proved when UP keys in its preferences in the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for April-May this year.
