BJP concerned over U.P. law and order

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, NOV. 24. A string of episodes involving communal clashes and Shia-Sunni street fights in different parts of Uttar Pradesh since Mr. Rajnath Singh took over as the Chief Minister have left the Bharatiya Janata Party more than a bit worried.

Mr. Singh, who had publicly said he would set right the law and order problem ``within 15 days'', embarrassingly, had to deal with communal clashes which, mercifully, had not been witnessed in the State in the last three to four years.

``The BJP is very worried and concerned,'' the parliamentary party spokesperson, Mr. V. K. Malhotra, said today, indicating that the immediate cause was the recent murder of a block ``pramukh'' (chief) in Jaunpur which led to more killings. ``The communal tension is spreading,'' Mr. Malhotra said and charged that there was a ``political conspiracy'' to defame the BJP in the State.

Mr. Malhotra was also referring to the Congress-SP standoff in the Lok Sabha today when the SP tried to raise the Jaunpur killings issue.

Over the last couple of months there have been Shia- Sunni clashes in Azamgarh, disturbances in Kanpur, some problems in Varanasi and now Jaunpur. Of course, with civic polls taking place in the State some tension was natural, but the fact is that the Chief Minister's boast of making Uttar Pradesh the quietest State in 15 days has fallen flat.

The results of the civic polls are expected in a couple of days, but even before the results are out, party leaders admit they cannot hope to get the kind of results they did four years ago.

The National Democratic Alliance government had lived up to its promise of making major communal clashes a thing of the past, Mr. Malhotra said but felt that the attempt to create communal tension was the handiwork of ``parties that have been surviving on making Muslims feel insecure and then trying to secure their votes.'' Asked to identify the parties, he readily named the Samajwadi Party of Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Congress. He linked the trouble to the fight over the Muslim vote.

The BJP too was keen on getting the support of the Muslims - witness the Nagpur message of the party president, Mr. Bangaru Laxman - but the party naturally claimed that by creating disturbances and keeping Muslims insecure, the ``other'' parties were trying to prevent the Muslim vote from shifting towards the BJP. This claim is hotly contested by the SP and the Bahujan Samaj Party and the feeling in the SP is that the BJP can dream about this, it will not happen.

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Section  : National
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