Muslim appeasement hallmark of UPA govt: BJP

Lucknow, Dec 23: Declaring Muslims to be an 'inseperable part' of India, the BJP today charged the UPA government at the Centre with 'indulging in a shameful appeasement policy' and 'trying to create an artificial divide by separating Muslims from the rest.' Dubbing the Muslim 'appeasement' and 'vote-bank politics' as the 'hallmark' of UPA governance, the BJP National Council resolved to 'mobilise all nationalist Indians and defeat this assault on our nationhood.'

The resolution, moved by senior party leader Ms Sushma Swaraj and seconded by former UP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, lambasted the ''Muslim appeasement policy'' adopted by the Congress, which was ''playing havoc with the Indian identity and nationalism.'' Mincing no words to condemn the Congress for its ''blatant appeasement measures, the resolution said that ''earlier the wooing of the Muslim community was couched in the language of minority welfare, but today, the UPA government has shed its camouflage and is explicitly courting the Muslim community alone.'' Linking its allegation of ''poor tackling'' of terrorism by the UPA government to the appeasement, its claimed the ''Muslim appeasement had been taken to such dangerous heights that the Congress-led government had chosen to go soft on terrorism.'' ''The Government has yielded space to Jihadi elements that are out to destroy India,'' the resolution said.

The resolution cited the repeal of POTA by terming it 'anti-Muslim'', inaction by the Centre on the non-implementation of its ban on Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and withdrawal of cases against their activists by Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh and keeping on hold the death sentence awarded to Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru as some of the incidents forming ''part of the Centre's design to appease the Muslims.'' The party also came down heavily on the UPA for agreeing to a joint Indo-Pakistan mechanism to monitor terror, alleging by doing so, the UPA government had diluted the Islamabad declaration of January 2004 and allowed Pakistan to extricate cross-border terrorism from the so-called ''peace process.'' The UPA also came in for sharp criticism for rubbishing the investigation of the Mumbai police commissioner, which pointed to a Pakistani-role in the serial blasts in suburban trains in the metropolis on July 11.

UNI

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