NEW DELHI – A growing scandal over Hindu militants linked to bombings in India has highlighted how the ruling Congress party and the main opposition are increasingly exchanging bitter barbs ahead of key state elections this year.
Congress, stung by graft allegations and food inflation that have hit its approval ratings, hopes to gain the initiative over the Bharatya Janata Party (BJP) after a report linking alleged Hindu militant bombers with its ideological parent organisation. The stakes for Asia’s third largest economy are huge.
Congress depends on regional parties from West Bengal and Tamil Nadu for its majority parliamentary coalition. Any failure in those state elections may hurt Congress’s ability to hold its coalition together ahead of a 2014 general election.
At the weekend, the BJP pledged to make corruption its election plank, scenting victory after a $39 billion telecoms scandal sparked the firing of a minister belonging to Congress’s Tamil Nadu ally, weakening the coalition.
The BJP offensive, which blocked many parliamentary sessions last year, may now come up against allegations Hindus from the BJP’s ideological parent organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), were behind bombings first blamed on Islamists.
“Congress will hope the Hindu terror allegations links to the RSS will draw attention from its own problems of corruption and price rises,” said political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan.
“Whether it works is another matter.”
Since re-election in 2009, Congress appears to have lurched from one crisis to another. With food inflation at a year high and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself criticised over the telecoms scandal, little has gone its way. Until now.
Tehelka magazine printed the confession of Swami Asimanand, head of a RSS-affiliated group who was implicated in a bombing.
