BJP conspiring to break India by dividing people on religious lines: Congress

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Tuesday accused the BJP of conspiring to "break" India by dividing people on religious lines and said the grand old party will undertake 'yatras' across the country to unite the people.
The party has given the "Bharat jodo" slogan to unite India and a 75-km yatra will be undertaken after August 9 during the 75th year of India's Independence, senior spokesperson Ajay Maken told reporters here, after AICC general secretaries and in-charges held a meeting to give shape to the recommendations of the just-concluded three-day 'Chintan Shivir' at Udaipur in Rajasthan.
He said the 'Bharat Jodo' is not a unification of land masses of India but is about uniting the people of India.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also made a call to people to unite India and defeat BJP's politics of hatred.
"People's issues -- earnings, inflation; BJP's issues -- riots, dictatorship. If the country has to progress, negative thinking of BJP and politics of hatred has to be defeated. Let's together do 'Bharat jodo' (unite India)," Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.
Top Congress leaders, including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, K C Venugopal, Randeep Surjewala and Maken, were among the leaders who attended the meeting at AICC headquarters to evolve an action plan for the early implementation of the "Nav Sankalp" declaration made at the Shivir.
The host of structural changes that were announced by the Congress at the three-day conclave will be implemented in the next few months.
AICC general secretaries and in-charges will meet again on Wednesday to chalk out the detailed plan for the implementation of the recommendations that include the "below 50" formula of granting party positions and tickets to youths, putting a cap of five years on one person holding a particular position, "one family, one ticket" and "one person, one post" formulas.
Maken said all such people holding multiple positions in the organisation and those on a position for over five years will be identified and new Congress mandals and setting up of new public insight and assessment departments will be formed soon, as recommended in the Udaipur declaration of the party.
He said the Congress Election Authority, which conducts organisational elections, has been sensitised of the new recommendations of giving 50 per cent representation to people below 50 years of age.
The internal elections of the party are underway and the Authority will have to conduct the elections in such a manner that leaders below 50 years of age get representation and so do women and SCs/STs and OBCs on party positions.
"The process has been set in motion and the recommendations of the declaration would be implemented in a time-bound action plan. It is not just a 'Nav Sankalp', but a 'Dridh Sankalp' (firm resolve)," Maken told reporters.
Attacking the BJP, the senior Congress leader said, "The BJP leaders who are ruling the country are under a misconception, as they feel India is only a collection of geographical land masses but it is actually a union of people and when they try to divide them between the rich and the poor and between religions, then the threat of India breaking down is real," he told reporters.
He said the issue of rising inflation with wholesale price index rising to a record 15.08 per cent and the Indian Rupee falling to a record low, even as Sri Lanka-like conditions are knocking at India's doorstep, the BJP is raising issues of polarisation deliberately to avoid discussion on them and to divert public attention from these burning issues.
"When BJP leaders, maybe in their innocence, are dividing people, they are seeking to break the country," Maken said.
"When you break the unity of people, the threat of India breaking becomes more real. We urge the BJP to have a relook at the way they are governing the country and dividing people," he said.
"Kindly don't divide people as it takes generations to unite people," he said, urging the ruling party leadership to desist from doing so.