NEW DELHI: As Mumbai struggled to get back on its feet after serial blasts on Wednesday evening, politicos began the blame game once again over who is responsible for the dastardly act.
While Congress defended the Government and claimed that almost 99 per cent of the terror attacks have been averted and that India was a better place than Pakistan, where bomb blasts were becoming a routine affair; the BJP hit back at the UPA alleging that such acts were the result of policy failure and not intelligence failure.
Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi addressed a press conference on Thursday and said, "It is very difficult to stop every single terrorist attack." He also added that 99 per cent of the attacks have been stopped. "We must stop 100 per cent attacks."
This was followed by a bizarre statement by senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh who said, "In a country of 1.2 billion people, we have improved our intelligence network but no one can say there can't be anything of this sort ever. We are comparatively better than Pakistan where such incidents happen every week."
Rahul Gandhi's comments also evoked sharp reactions from the BJP.
Senior BJP leader LK Advani, who visited the blast sites early on Thursday, called the three blasts a policy failure. He said, "India should work towards ensuring that ISI be declared a terrorist organisation."
Advani also pointed fingers at Pakistan. "India Mujahideen (IM) gets assistance from Pakistan. The last Mumbai attack is proved to have been assisted by Pakistan's ISI," said Advani.
While Advani pointed out at Pakistan and ISI, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley commented on TADA.
Jaitley mentioned, "When TADA was being used in the probe into 1993 Mumbai serial blast case why was it removed? Why did the thought arise that there was no need of a strong anti-terrorism law? If the government uses its strength to fight terrorism instead of its Opposition members it would be benefit the nation."
At a time when the political class needed to come together, it's their contradictions which have come to the fore.
