Digvijaya dares BJP to arrest him over Naxal-link allegations

Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Tuesday came down heavily on the Bharatiya Janata Party over accusation of his connections with the Naxals. He said, if this is true then the government should arrest him immediately.

"If that be so, arrest me immediately. Earlier they called me anti-national, now Naxal. You can arrest me from here only," Singh said at a press conference here when asked about BJP's claims.

Earlier in the day, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra, accusing the Congress of playing with national security for the sake of politics and took a jibe at the party saying "confusion, conspiracy and Congress are synonyms."

"There are some who have romanticised Naxalism within the Congress party. The biggest example of this was the National Advisory Council (NAC) by Congress, which was the brainchild of Sonia Gandhi and closest to her. That body was the ground for supporting Naxalism," Patra said.

Patra later claimed that during the raids in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence, which broke out in January, a "letter between two comrades Surendra and Prakash of 25 Sept 2017 has been found. The letter reads, 'Congress leaders are very much willing to assist in this process and have also agreed to fund further agitations whenever such opportunities arrive. In this regard, you can contact our friend on this.. number.'"

He stated that the phone number belongs to none other than Congress president Rahul Gandhi's "mentor and Congress leader Digvijaya Singh."

"Digvijay Singh has not clarified that it's not his number and thus, has accepted that it's his," Patra said.

Pune Police, on August 28, had arrested five activists, claiming they had links to the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist). The raids triggered strong criticism against the police, leading the cops to defend and claim that they had strong evidence against those arrested.