New Delhi: Slamming Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday termed as 'irresponsible, baseless and false' the allegations linking the killing of journalist Gauri Lankesh to the BJP or people following its ideology.
"The present government, the BJP or any of its organisations have no connection with the killing of journalist Gauri Lankesh," the Road Transport, Highways, Shipping and Water Resources Minister told reporters.
"The reaction on this incident by the president of a political party is very irresponsible, baseless and false," Gadkari said without naming the Congress chief.
Gadkari added that he condemned the incident but the manner in which the ruling party is being portrayed by some political parties was unfortunate and objectionable.
"If there is a murder and somebody is accused of it, unless and until there is any evidence, that person cannot be pronounced guilty. Some people have allergy with Bhartiya Janata Party. They are unable to digest the good work by the BJP under the leadership of Prime Minister. They are levelling such false and baseless allegations," the former BJP president said, as per PTI.
He said such "irresponsible and false" allegations "will cause harm to democracy" and any such projection that the BJP is linked to it is an injustice to the party.
The BJP leader also hit out at Rahul, who had alleged that anybody who spoke against the ideology of the BJP and the RSS, was pressured, beaten and even killed.
The Congress VP described PM Modi as a "skilled Hindutva politician" whose comments had one meaning for his supporters and another for the rest of the world.
Taking exception to the remarks, Gadkari said, "This is very unfortunate. The country's PM is not of one party and is the nation's honour. For a responsible leader of a political party, levelling such baseless and untrue allegation is unfortunate. It is not good for Indian democracy."
He added that the PM was presently abroad to further the country's interests and it was unfortunate that such allegations were being levelled against him.
Earlier, condemning the journalist's murder, Sonia had said that the party stood as one with the rationalists, thinkers, journalists and the media fraternity.
"The series of killings of rationalists, free thinkers and journalists in the country has created an atmosphere that dissent, ideological differences and divergence of views can endanger our lives. This cannot be and should not be tolerated. It is an extremely sad moment for our democracy and a chilling reminder of the fact that intolerance and bigotry is raising its ugly head in our society," she said in a statement.
On the other hand, Rahul had said:
Anybody who speaks against the RSS/BJP is attacked &even killed. They want to impose only one ideology which is against the nature of India
— Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) September 6, 2017
Sometimes the PM speaks under pressure but the entire idea is to crush dissent and this is resulting in a very serious problem in India
— Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) September 6, 2017
The Kannada journalist-activist was shot dead by unidentified assailants at her residence on Tuesday night.
(With PTI inputs)
