New Delhi:
Narendra Modi has ripped into a proposed Bill to check communal violence - redrafted by the Centre after it was opposed by many states - and called it a "recipe for disaster" driven by vote-bank politics ahead of the national election due by May.
"The timing of the Communal Violence Bill is suspicious. Political considerations and vote-bank politics rather than genuine concerns are guiding it," the Gujarat Chief Minister said in a sharply worded letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, setting the stage for a political war in the winter session that began today.
Reacting to Mr Modi's critique, the Prime Minister today said, "It will be our effort to evolve a broad-based consensus on all the matters of great legislative importance." The government said it wants to pass the Bill at the earliest but its not certain whether it will come up in this session.
Mr Modi, who is running for Prime Minister in 2014, said the Bill is "ill-conceived and poorly drafted", and of 'suspicious' timing and content.
The government made major changes in the Bill after states called it an attempt to infringe on their rights by allowing the Centre to directly intervene in riot-hit areas without imposing President's rule.
Mr Modi has reiterated that view and called for "wider consultation among various stakeholders."
The proposed legislation, Mr Modi said, would reinforce religious and linguistic divides and even ordinary incidents of violence would be given a communal colour. The BJP had earlier objected to a provision that it said assumed that only members of the minority community can be targeted during a riot.
Mr Modi is the second chief minister to write to the PM against the Bill this week, after his Tamil Nadu counterpart Jayalalithaa.
The opposition accuses the ruling Congress of trying to pass the Bill ahead of national polls in the hope of winning Muslim votes.