[The Working Group of the National Advisory Council (NAC) has drawn up a draft bill - "Prevention of Communal and Targetted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparation) Bill" - and this has been approved by the NAC last week. The NAC has uploaded the Bill on its website (at <nac.nic.in/pdf/pctvb_amended.pdf>) and invites suggestions and feedback from civil society to the same, which can be emailed to wgcvb@nac.nic.in on or before 4 June 2011.]
BJP targets Sonia on Communal Violence Bill
First Published : 28 May 2011 03:07:46 AM IST
Last Updated : 28 May 2011 10:25:36 AM IST
NEWDELHI: Raising the pitch against the Communal Violence Bill, the BJP has targeted Congress president Sonia Gandhi, saying, this Bill carries her imprint, as it has been drafted by the National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by her.
Rejecting the Communal Violence Bill outright, as it is discriminatory; the saffron party has declared that it would carry out a nationwide campaign against it.The party is peeved that the Communal Violence Bill proposed by the NAC has been drafted by persons, who opposed TADA and POTA. They have no accountability and enjoy their clout for being the 'eyes and ears' of Sonia Gandhi.This Bill would be debated and the party would raise it in a big way across the country, BJP general secretary and chief spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said."Prevention should not become worse than the disease," was the reaction of Ravi Shankar Prasad.
The party, he said, was particularly appalled by the discriminatory character of the Bill, which exclusively dealt with violence against minorities, virtually ruling out the possibility of minority violence against the majority. Prasad questioned Sonia, "Can the majority community become the victim of violence or not?" At this rate, Prasad feared that jehadis or the SIMI could easily foment communal trouble and get away with impunity, because they cannot be booked under the proposed law.
The BJP leader cited Section 3C of the Communal Violence Bill, which says, "Communal and targeted violence means and includes any act or series of acts, whether spontaneous or planned, resulting in injury or harm to the person and or property, knowingly directed against any person by virtue of his or her membership of any group, which destroys the secular fabric of the nation." Then, he went on to ask Sonia whether AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh's visit to Azamgarh and mingling with the families of terrorists was helping the secular fabric. He askedwhether descriptions in certain quarters of the SIMI as cultural organisation also helped the secular fabric.
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Congress dismisses BJP charges on communal violence bill
TNN | May 28, 2011, 01.23am ISTNEW DELHI: Congress dismissed BJP's charge that the Centre was playing a communal card on 'communal violence bill' and delaying the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, saying the Opposition's offensive smacked of sectarian mindset.
AICC spokesman Abhishek Singhvi, when asked about the Centre sitting on Guru's mercy petition while deciding on Devender Pal Singh Bhullar plea on Thursday, said BJP was making communal statements when the party itself had not decided on 24 mercy petitions during the NDA regime.
Stating that there was a constitutional process at work, Singhvi said the Centre had to follow the order of the list of mercy petitions. "You cannot leapfrog from one to the person 54th in the list," he said. After the President rejected Bhullar's petition, BJP targeted the Centre for sitting on Guru's hanging because of "appeasement politics".
The Congress spokesman rebuffed the Opposition party's criticism of communal violence billviolating the federal structure and questioning the secular character of Hindus by restricting the definition of victims to "religious and linguistic minorities". He said, "The BJP reaction is a preemptive strike and reflects the guilt complex of the party which carries Babri demolition and Gujarat riots as a matter of pride."
Singhvi said, "For violence by minorities, there is the normal law to deal with the case. The communal violence bill is a special law to protect minorities. This bill is to inspire confidence in minorities who are victims, including Hindus who are linguistic minorities."
He said the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council had finalized a draft bill but it was just an input for a wide consultation exercise to hammer out the final version. In strong defence of the NAC draft made public last week, Singhvi said charges of it violating the federal structure were misplaced because the said clause provided three stringent conditions for the Centre to step in.
"If a state resolutely refuses to act in the face of action to break the secular fabric of the country, what is wrong with the Centre stepping in" he said, adding that misuse of Article 356 could be appealed against in court as is done normally.
AICC spokesman Abhishek Singhvi, when asked about the Centre sitting on Guru's mercy petition while deciding on Devender Pal Singh Bhullar plea on Thursday, said BJP was making communal statements when the party itself had not decided on 24 mercy petitions during the NDA regime.
Stating that there was a constitutional process at work, Singhvi said the Centre had to follow the order of the list of mercy petitions. "You cannot leapfrog from one to the person 54th in the list," he said. After the President rejected Bhullar's petition, BJP targeted the Centre for sitting on Guru's hanging because of "appeasement politics".
The Congress spokesman rebuffed the Opposition party's criticism of communal violence billviolating the federal structure and questioning the secular character of Hindus by restricting the definition of victims to "religious and linguistic minorities". He said, "The BJP reaction is a preemptive strike and reflects the guilt complex of the party which carries Babri demolition and Gujarat riots as a matter of pride."
Singhvi said, "For violence by minorities, there is the normal law to deal with the case. The communal violence bill is a special law to protect minorities. This bill is to inspire confidence in minorities who are victims, including Hindus who are linguistic minorities."
He said the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council had finalized a draft bill but it was just an input for a wide consultation exercise to hammer out the final version. In strong defence of the NAC draft made public last week, Singhvi said charges of it violating the federal structure were misplaced because the said clause provided three stringent conditions for the Centre to step in.
"If a state resolutely refuses to act in the face of action to break the secular fabric of the country, what is wrong with the Centre stepping in" he said, adding that misuse of Article 356 could be appealed against in court as is done normally.
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