Salim should prove allegations or resign: Gadkari (Lead, correcting headline)

Charging the opposition with making baseless charges against the BJP to create fear among the minorities, union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday said that CPI-M's Lok Sabha member Mohammad Salim should either prove his allegations against Home Minister Rajnath Singh or resign.

"Unfortunately, people are indulging in making baseless charges even in parliament. Rajnath Singh never said those words, but the allegations have been made against him.

"Either Salim should prove the allegations he made or he should resign. Parliament as a forum should never be used for making baseless charges but the Congress and the Left parties are doing it and for the sake of vote bank politics. They are trying to vitiate the communal harmony in the country," said Gadkari, the road transport and highways minister.

Initiating the debate on intolerance in the Lok Sabha, Salim on Monday attributed a remark published in a magazine to Rajnath Singh which triggered a huge uproar in parliament.

Late Monday night, the magazine admitted that it had wrongly attributed to Rajnath Singh a remark that was, in fact, made by late Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Singhal.

Slamming those who returned their awards to protest 'intolerance', Gadkari said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata party were being wrongly held responsible for law and order problems in the states.

"(Writer M.M.) Kalburgi was killed in Karnataka where there is a Congress government, the Dadri incident happened in Uttar Pradesh where there the Samajwadi Party is in power. Then why are people holding Modi and the BJP responsible? Law and order is a state subject, then why are being blamed for that?" he asked.

"Litterateurs influenced by Communist ideology are doing this as they cannot bear to see Modi as prime minister. The opposition is intentionally doing this with the aim to create fear among the minorities in the name of Modi and BJP," Gadkari added.