Naqvi says Khurshid's comments acknowledgement of Cong's history

New Delhi: The BJP on Tuesday described senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid's statement that his party had stains of blood on its hands as an "acknowledgement" of its history of "engineering communal riots", and said it continued to practise the same politics of creating division and tensions to get votes.

Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the Congress always wore mask of secularism but practised communalism and added that people wanted it to "accept" truth and come clean after Khurshid made his "individual confession".

Citing a number of major riots, including in Bhiwandi, Bhagalpur and Malegaon, which occurred when the Congress was in power, Naqvi told PTI that more than 50,000 such violent incidents had happened under its governments in which thousands of innocent people were killed. He also made a reference to the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. "The Congress is a history-sheeter as far as communal riots are concerned. It has practised politics of divide and rule while using castes and communities to sow division in society. It created social tensions for votes. It continues with this tradition," he said.The opposition party wore mask of secularism but its character has always been communal, he alleged.

Acknowledging that communal riots and other sectarian violence did take place during Congress rule, former Union minister Khurshid has said the party's hands are stained with blood. Khurshid made the remark at the Aligarh Muslim University on Sunday in response to a student accusing the Congress of having Muslim blood on its hands and asking how the party proposed to wash it off. "It is a political question. There is blood on our hands. I am also a part of the Congress so let me say it, said Khurshid, triggering a row.