AAP, BJP spur over Delhi violence

New Delhi, Dec 15: The violence in Delhi during a protest against the amended Citizenship Act on Sunday triggered a blame game between the BJP and the AAP, with the two parties accusing each other of orchestrating it.

While the BJP demanded that the AAP should stop "provoking" people, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia alleged that the saffron party got police personnel to set buses afire during the protest.

The amended Citizenship Act seeks to provide citizenship to non-Muslim religious minorities from three neighbouring countries who arrived in India till December 31, 2014, to escape religious persecution. The violence during the protest against the contentious law saw buses being torched in south Delhi.

"An AAP MLA is provoking people at the behest of (Delhi Chief Minister) Arvind Kejriwal.

The Muslims of the country are with India and are not going to be influenced by traitors like you. Stop provoking people," Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari tweeted in Hindi, in an apparent reference to Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan.

"The people of Delhi will teach AAP traitors a lesson. The sins of AAP are being exposed," he said. BJP leader Kapil Mishra also blamed Khan for the violence and likened it to the Godhra violence.

"This is a terrorist attack. Setting afire a bus which has a CNG cylinder means that there was a conspiracy for a big blast. What do you call this if not a terrorist attack? This fire was started by Amanatullah Khan. They are getting ready to repeat the Godhra incident in Delhi," he said.

Khan, however, denied all accusations. "Some TV channels have said that protesters have torched buses under my leadership, which is wrong. I protested near Shaheen Bagh where nothing untoward happened," he told reporters.

Sisodia also took to Twitter to hit out at the BJP. He tweeted photos from the protest site. He said it was clear in the photos, which showed police personnel standing beside buses, that the BJP used the force to set the buses on fire as part of its "dirty politics".

There should be an impartial investigation into the violence that erupted during the protest against the amended Citizenship Act, the deputy chief minister tweeted in Hindi.
Earlier, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had said that any kind of violence is unacceptable.

"No one shud indulge in violence. Any kind of violence is unacceptable. Protests shud remain peaceful," he had said in tweet.

Senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh said the violence was an attempt by the BJP to defame Delhi's ruling party ahead of the assembly elections. "AAP is a peaceful party that believes in democracy and non-violence. Whenever BJP realises that it is going to lose, it indulges in such cheap political tactics," he said.

Another senior AAP leader Gopal Rai also attacked the BJP. "AAP strongly condemns the violence in Okhla and wants to caution the people of Delhi that BJP is indulging in politics of hate as they know they will be losing in the upcoming polls. To lift their confidence, the BJP is indulging in such politics," he said.

"All the details that are emerging show that none of the AAP MLAs were part of any violent protest and I request people of Delhi to maintain peace," he said.