Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Friday launched a scathing verbal attack on senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh, terming him "anti-national" following a viral and contentious video that emerged a few days back.
The video, shared by a number of BJP leaders including Scindia, purportedly records Singh confessing to having tried to create communal tensions in Bhopal following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992. The BJP has termed the video a "communal confession."
Scindia, who was once a colleague of Singh within the Congress party before making a defection to the BJP, posted the video on X, employing a Hindi idiom which reads "a wooden pot cannot be reused," meaning that the real character of Singh had emerged. "Irrespective of how many masks anti-national Congress leaders use, the truth is always out there," Scindia posted.
His comments soon attracted criticism from Madhya Pradesh Congress leaders. Senior Congress leader and former state minister P.C. Sharma came down heavily, alleging that Scindia was circulating a doctored video. Sharma also posted a video clip of Scindia's late father, Madhavrao Scindia, a senior former Union Minister, asking Jyotiraditya to look at his father's legacy.
"Don't get blinded by power and position. If you had listened to your respected father's opinions about the BJP, you wouldn't have posted this fake video. The BJP indulges in politics of hate and provokes riots -- this can never be good for the country," Sharma wrote on X.
The furore started Thursday after BJP leader and Madhya Pradesh's Youth and Welfare Minister Vishwas Sarang uploaded the controversial video on the internet. He stated that the video was concrete evidence of Digvijaya Singh being responsible for fanning the 1992 Bhopal riots.
In the clip, Singh is reportedly overheard saying, "When Babri Masjid was brought down, I was state Congress president. I was at the party headquarters for a week and did everything possible to prevent communal violence." Singh has, however, repeatedly denied the authenticity of the clip, claiming that it was doctored. He explained that the offending word "no" had been removed, totally altering the sentence's meaning.
"Everybody knows how the BJP does fake news. In my entire sentence, they intentionally left out the word 'na' (no)," Singh stated on Thursday in dismissing the video as doctored.
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