New Delhi: In the wake of incidents of hate speech and communal violence across the country, leaders of 13 Opposition parties expressed their concern and issued a joint appeal on Saturday.
In a joint statement issued by Opposition leaders including Congress president Sonia Gandhi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and her Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand counterparts MK Stalin and Hemant Soren, they appealed to the people to maintain peace and harmony and demanded stringent punishment for perpetrators of such communal violence.
Flagging the manner in which issues of food, dress, faith, festivals and language “are being used” by the ruling establishment to polarise the society, the statement read, “We are shocked at the silence of the Prime Minister, who has failed to speak against the words and actions of those who propagate bigotry and those who, by their words and actions, incite and provoke our society. This silence is an eloquent testimony to the fact that such private armed mobs enjoy the luxury of official patronage.”
Asserting their resolve to work together to strengthen the communal bonds, the leaders wrote, “We reiterate our commitment to combat and confront the poisonous ideologies which are attempting to entrench divisiveness in our society.”
“We appeal to all sections of the people to maintain peace and foil the sinister objective of those who wish to sharpen communal polarisation. We call upon all our party units across the country to independently and jointly work for maintaining peace and harmony,” the statement further read.
Notably, some incidents of communal violence were reported from some parts of the country on the occasion of Ram Navami on April 10.