Rahul targets SP, BJP over Muzaffarnagar riots

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi Wednesday targeted both the Uttar Pradesh government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the Muzaffarnagar riots and said politicians engineer riots to win polls.

"Both Hindus and Muslims of Muzaffarnagar told me there is no enmity between people but politicians divide them," Gandhi told a rally at Numaish Maidan in this western Uttar Pradesh city.

"These politicians know that if there are no riots, they can't win the election," he said, in a veiled reference to the slapping of the National Security Act on Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana.

The August-September violence in Muzaffarnagar, also in western Uttar Pradesh, killed 62 and displaced over 45,000.

Gandhi attacked the Akhilesh Yadav government for not implementing the United Progressive Alliance's (UPA) flagship food security act in the state apprehending the Congress may get benefit of the scheme in the 2014 general elections.

He urged the people to "fight" for food security, saying it is their right now.

"The Uttar Pradesh government is not implementing the scheme as they know they would be badly defeated in 2014 if they implement the bill which has been given by the Congress," Gandhi said.

"You will have to wage the same battle as you did in Bhatta Parsaul. Only then will you get the right to food," he added.

"This (right to food) is your right. And you have to take it," he added.

He also said there will be a government of "the poor and the youth" in the country in 2014 which will usher in a new era of development.

If Uttar Pradesh was not progressing, it was because people were being divided, Gandhi said. He exhorted people to unite. "Till you unite, UP will not progress."

Besides the Samajwadi Party, Gandhi also targeted the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

"Both the SP and the BSP can't develop Uttar Pradesh. The Congress will do it. UP will not progress till the Congress is voted to power," he added.

Gandhi, who represents Amethi in the Lok Sabha, also highlighted legislations like the food security act and the land acquisition act passed by the UPA government to assert that it was sympathetic to the poor.

"The opposition (BJP) opposed the land acquisition bill but we stood for it. We passed it in parliament. It is the people in Aligarh who will get most of the benefit from this," said Gandhi.