Responding in the Lok Sabha to the debate on intolerance, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday said that as per the reports filed by the Uttar Pradesh government, the events in the Dadri lynching case had no communal angle. “The word beef was not even mentioned” and even pre-meditation was difficult to establish, he said.
“However, as Home Minister, I am ready to get the CBI to investigate the matter if the State government sends a request, except that one Minister in the Uttar Pradesh government wanted to refer the matter to the United Nations,” he said, referring to U.P. Minister Azam Khan’s action of sending a complaint to the U.N. Mr. Singh staunchly defended the government’s record in defending tolerance. He said that in all cases referred to in Opposition speeches, of the death of Professor Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar, the blame was wrongly attributed to the Central government. “The BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are the biggest victims of intolerance. Our ideology never wanted India to be divided on religious lines. Partition, Emergency and the 1984 Sikh riots are the biggest examples of intolerance,” he said.
To the Opposition’s charge that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had remained silent on all these incidents, Mr. Singh asked about “previous instances where Prime Ministers have commented on every event.” “I am the Home Minister, it is my job to speak on internal security and issues concerning it, and to take action on such incidents,” he said.
