BJP trying to create religious divide through rath yatra:

West Bengal minister and prominent minority leader Siddiqullah Chowdhury on Tuesday accused the BJP of trying to flare up communal tension through its rath yatra programmes in the state scheduled to start this week.

Ahead of the parliamentary election next year, the BJP is organising three rath yatras in West Bengal this month, which would cover all the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state. The first one starts Friday.

"The BJP's main target is to create a division among the people on religious line in Bengal. The rath yatras is being organised to serve that purpose. It should not be allowed in the state. They want to disturb the harmony in the state," Chowdhury alleged.

The president of West Bengal Jamiat-E-Ulama also claimed that the BJP government at the Centre is anti-Muslim and anti-dalit.

"All the steps taken by this government is against the Muslims. Under this regime, Muslims and dalits have been lynched," Chowdhury, the minister of state for library and mass education, said.

"India is secular country and every community has the right to perform his religious activities. The BJP does not have the right to dictate us on what we should do and what we should not," he said.

BJP president Amit Shah will kickstart three rath yatra programmes, the first of which will start from Coochbehar district in north Bengal on December 7.

The other two yatras would be from Gangasagar in the south on December 9 and from the temple town of Tarapith in Birbhum district on December 14.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to attend four rallies during the rath yatras, BJP sources said.