Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “evading responsibility” over incidents of communal violence, including the lynching of a Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh over beef eating rumours, the Left Front Wednesday said in the last one year and five months the NDA government has “polarised” the country turning it into a place, which is “unknown to all of us”. “The Modi government in the last one year and five months has turned the country into a place which is unknown to all of us. It has polarised the entire country, dividing people on communal lines. The situation is so alarming that many more Dadri-like incidents are waiting to happen,” Left Front chairman Biman Bose told mediapersons here. The CPM leader said the PM’s “silence” on murders of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, Leftist Govind Pansare and scholar M M Kalburgi, has “provoked communal incidents” like the Dadri lynching. [related-post] Bose also attacked the PM for his claim that the Centre couldn’t be held responsible for the Dadri lynching. “All these days, Modi tried to evade the responsibility by maintaining silence and now he is doing the same by saying that the central government is not responsible. His comments are highly deplorable and an attempt to trivialise an incident that led to a nationwide outrage,” said Bose. He was referring to Modi’s interview to Bengali daily Ananda Bazar Patrika in which he accused the opposition of indulging in “pseudo secularism” and “politics of polarisation”, and described the Dadri lynching incident and the cancellation of Pakistani ghazal singer Ghulam Ali’s concert in Mumbai as “undesirable and unfortunate”. Referring to the Dadri lynching, Bose said, “Nobody has the right to interfere in personal choice and faith. If someone wants to have beef, he can have it, if someone prefers goat meat he can have it. Nobody has the right to stop someone from following his own faith”. Extending his support towards writers who have returned their Sahitya Akademi awards, Bose said, “We fully support the writers, the present situation in the country is grave. The people from all walks of life need to come together and protest against the rising intolerance”. Bose also reiterated the CPM’s stand against “attempts” to “entrap” the country under “US imperialism” and questioned the Modi government’s stress on strategic military tie-up with the country. “A strategic military tie-up with the United States and Japan is harmful for India’s strategic independence and autonomy. India should not become a subservient ally of US military strategy in Asia,” Bose said, while reacting to the Malabar exercise between India, US and Japan. Bose said that the Left Front would organise a rally against communalism and rising intolerance on October 16.
