Patna blasts an act of terror,and a conspiracy to kill Narendra Modi, says BJP

New Delhi – The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Monday called the serial blasts in Patna an act of terror, and said it reflected the vulnerability of our society.

The party also said the Bihar government was “soft on terror”.

“The kind of incident that happened in Patna, I believe it is due to terrorist activities,” BJP president Rajnath Singh said Monday.

“The incident is unfortunate, certainly there were intelligence and security lapses, because of which the incident occurred,” he said.

Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said the blasts came as a reminder of “vulnerability”, as mass gatherings occur in the run-up to elections.

“These blasts are a grim reminder of the vulnerability of the security of both senior leaders and political events being organised in the run-up to the elections,” Jaitley said.

“India cannot afford to be either soft on terror or soft on security. A policy against terror and the need for security cannot be relatable to the policy of vote bank politics of a given government,” he said.

Six people were killed and over 80 injured Sunday in a string of explosions that took place at Patna railway station and Gandhi Maidan, shortly before BJP’s prime minister candidate Narendra Modi spoke at a rally.

Rajnath Singh lauded the people of Bihar for being patient when the blasts occurred.

“I want to thank the people of Bihar who displayed such patience, I appreciate it,” he said.

He added that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar called him Sunday night and assured him that action would be taken.

Party leader Shahnawaz Hussain said the Bihar government failed to follow its “Rajya Dharma” (the duty of the rulers).

“It’s the duty of the government to provide security to all rallies, regardless of the party organising it. The Bihar government failed to follow its ‘Rajya Dharma’,” he said.

Addressing a press conference in Patna, state’s former Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Sushil Modi said, “I feel Sunday’s serial blasts in Patna were a conspiracy to eliminate Gujarat Chief Minister and our PM candidate Narendra Modi.”

Sushil Modi even attacked the Nitish Kumar government for ignoring the threats to Modi’s life and asked, “Why was an anti-sabotage check not conducted.”

“One of the low intensity bombs exploded just 100 metres away from the stage where Modi ji and other senior leaders were present. Imagine what would have happened,”Sushil Modi asked.

Earlier, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley blamed the Bihar government and the state police for completely ignoring the intelligence inputs about Modi’s ‘Hunkar’ rally.

Talking to reporters, Jaitley said, “As per our information, Bihar’s Additional DGP was sent two alerts, we want Centre & state govt to confirm this. There was a generic intelligence alert on October 1 and a specific alert was sent to Bihar govt on October 23 and then on October 27.”

Coming down heavily on the Nitish Kumar government for ignoring the intelligence alerts, Jaitley said, “Bihar govt can’t wash its hands off the matter by saying there was no intelligence alert about the rally.”

Seeking clarification the Centre and the Bihar government, the BJP leader said, “We need to find out whether yesterday’s conspiracy was executed by the same faction (IM).”

“All I can say is that the attitude was casual and callous. There is a security drill in this country, so must let Centre along with state government look into what security lapses were there,” Jaitley said.

Attacking the Bihar government for mismanagement, Jaitley said, “Had we not assured people that these were fire crackers, there could be unprecedented consequences due to a stampede there,” adding, “If a casualty was further averted, it was purely our good fortune.”

Jaitley even questioned Centre’s soft approach to incidents of terrorism by saying, “Are we going to be soft on security because some state governments want to be seen as soft on terror for collateral reasons?”

“We were asked to call off Patna rally when we reached there because four blasts had already happened, ” Jaitley commented adding, “When a Chief Minister of a different state goes to another then Advanced Security Drill is conducted which host state has to certify. Bihar did not certify it.”