BJP national president Amit Shah (Files) BJP national president Amit Shah (Files)

Using the acquittal of the main suspects in 2007 blast at Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid by an NIA court as a rallying theme, BJP president Amit Shah Wednesday threw the phrases “saffron terror’’ and “Hindu terror’’ at the Congress and sought an apology from the party’s president, Rahul Gandhi, for using those words. While senior Congress leader P L Punia had denied hours after the court verdict Monday that either the Congress or Rahul Gandhi had used the words “saffron terror”, Shah, addressing a meeting of BJP’s booth-level and shakti kendra workers in Bengaluru, said there was evidence to link Congress leaders to the term. He urged BJP workers to raise this issue before people of Karnataka, which goes to the polls on May 12.

“The great Hindu culture, which for centuries has taught the world the lesson of dignity, peace and culture, has been linked to terrorism, and this sin has been committed by the Congress,” he told the gathering. “At this convention of party workers I want to ask Congress president Rahul Gandhi whether he intends to seek apology of the people or whether he wants the people of Karnataka to teach him a lesson.”

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He said, “Two days ago a court in Hyderabad delivered a judgment that all the accused in Mecca Masjid blast case are innocent. This is the blast that the Congress had labelled as (handiwork of) saffron terror and Hindu terror. We kept quiet. They released the real culprits. Those who were caught were tried and the court has said that there is no evidence against them.

“For several years the Congress told the world that saffron terror and Hindu terror was involved…they have defamed the country. There is no religion for terror — Rahul Gandhi must know this, and should apologise to the people. Now the Congress says it never coined those term.”

Shah said that besides Rahul, former Home ministers P Chidambaram and Sushil Kumar Shinde, former External Affairs minister Salman Khurshid, senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh and Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah had used the term “saffron terror” to refer to these incidents.

Exhorting the people of Karnataka to take up this issue – “because they (Congress leaders) have misled the people” – the BJP president advised party workers to take the message of development initiatives undertaken by the Narendra Modi government in Karnataka to the voters. He also asked party workers and leaders to tell people about alleged corruption in the state government under Siddaramaiah.

Shah said that the credit for bringing the BJP to power at the Centre and in 20 states goes to the party’s booth-level and shakti kendra leaders. “They have made us relevant in places where we had no political standing: Tripura, Manipur and Assam,’’ he said.

Shah also said, “I get emotional at these meetings because I began my career as a booth-level leader in 1981. Today, the BJP has made this common booth worker the party’s president…”

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