Rahul says will speak on Hindu terror at party meet

All eyes will be on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, and how he will defend himself against his ‘Hindu terror’ remarks to US diplomats, when the Congress party plenary opens tomorrow.

“I will speak tomorrow,” is what Gandhi told reporters, when asked whether he will speak in the two-day plenary session of the party. The party’s Subjects Committee meet today to finalise the agenda and text of the four resolutions, which the party will place for delegates to speak on at the plenary.

Sources said Congress was likely to strike a middle path on the issue of terror, but the party struggled to cap criticism of Gandhi’s remarks. While party leaders said the party was treating the controversy as a “closed chapter”, because it included “analysis and interpretation”, and could not be considered accurate for that reason, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party let its delight be shown transparently and made political capital from the statement, interpreted as letting Islamic radical terror off the hook.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today said if the US was taking a pro-Pakistan tilt in its policies, it was because of assertions of leaders such as Gandhi.

“It is now clear who was prompting the US to speak in favour of Pakistan,” Modi said. “The whole world was convinced that Pakistan promotes terrorism. They train terrorists and terrorism is the biggest export industry for the nation,” he said on the sidelines of a function here.

Modi said he used to wonder why Americans supported Pakistan, despite this widely acknowledged fact.