Chandigarh, May 7 (IANS) Punjab Bharatiya Janata Party President Sunil Jakhar on Thursday said that by making misleading statements on bomb blasts by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, Aam Aadmi Party national convenor Arvind Kejriwal “wants to break the state’s communal harmony and incite unrest in the state”.

He said the Bharatiya Janata Party would never allow such attempts to succeed.

After the Chief Minister allegedly made baseless accusations blaming the Bharatiya Janata Party for the bomb blasts, a party delegation visited the Director General of Police’s office here, demanding an investigation into what it termed a “conspiracy” behind the statement.

The delegation also offered themselves for arrest at the police headquarters and said that “if there is any evidence against them, action should be taken; otherwise the Chief Minister and other Aam Aadmi Party leaders should be included in the investigation and action should be initiated against them for making baseless accusations and incendiary statements”.

Jakhar described the Chief Minister’s statement as “not only dangerous for communal harmony but also seditious”.

He said that whenever “India raises the issue of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism at international forums, Pakistan could now use the Chief Minister’s video statement in its defence”.

The Bharatiya Janata Party chief added that the Chief Minister’s remarks had damaged India’s image internationally.

He said that while Punjab’s Director General of Police claims “Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence is behind the blasts, the Chief Minister is effectively giving Pakistan a clean chit and therefore, a sedition case should be registered against him”.

Jakhar alleged that the Chief Minister was acting merely as a pawn in a larger conspiracy orchestrated by Kejriwal.

He claimed that the Aam Aadmi Party’s intention “is to provoke communal tensions in Punjab and damage the state’s social harmony for political gain”.

He said that the fact that multiple Aam Aadmi Party leaders “are making similar statements proves this is part of a choreographed and coordinated strategy by the party leadership to sow hatred in Punjab”.

He also alleged that during the 2017 Punjab elections, Kejriwal had stayed at homes of people linked to extremists, and their antecedents themselves are suspects.

“He has no right even to accuse a nationalist party like the Bharatiya Janata Party,” he added.

–IANS

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