Opposition flays Congress-NCP alliance

The sombre occasion notwithstanding, the politicians continued to use the Mumbai serial blasts to settle their political scores.

The sombre occasion notwithstanding, the politicians continued to use the Mumbai serial blasts to settle their political scores. While the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) remained on the defensive, the opposition parties — Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — launched a scathing attack on them for going soft on terror.

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“If a government can’t ensure security, then what is the point of having such a government?” said Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray who visited the victims at KEM hospital on Thursday. Coming down heavily on home minister P Chidambaram, he said: “If this is not an intelligence failure, then what is it?”

Senior BJP leader LK Advani too termed the blasts as a failure of country’s policy and not intelligence. “The government must shed its ambivalence towards terrorism,” he said.

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray, reiterated on the need to check influx. “City is flooded with migrants, who indulge in criminal activities. To tackle it, we need a combing operation by the army.”

Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s statement that it is difficult to stop every single terror attack evoked strong reactions from all quarters. “Rahul should not talk of issues which he is not aware of,” said Raj.

Stressing on the need to stop ‘politicising the issue’, chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said, “This is the time to come together and restore peace.”