New Delhi:
The Congress has reacted sharply to Salman Rushdie's interview to NDTV in which the author said the protests against his visit are linked to elections in Uttar Pradesh.
Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told NDTV that the UP polls have nothing to do with what happened to Rushdie.
"The two are absolutely unconnected. This is an event happening in Jaipur, there are no elections in Rajasthan. How is it possible that by conveying a threat perception to them to the Central government or to the organisers in any way the elections are going to be affected? No, that's nothing but sensationalising the issue and trying to make it much bigger than it should be," Mr Singhvi said.
Mr Rushdie had said in an interview to NDTV's Barkha Dutt that the protests against his visit are pretty shocking.
"I am at a loss to understand why it's happened now, other than, of course, what everyone has said, that it's somehow connected to the UP elections and the desire to collect the Muslim vote in those elections. But, I've visited India, as you know Barkha, a number of times in these last years; five or six times in the last eight or nine years. I've even spoken at the Jaipur Festival with you, four years ago. I spoke at the India Today Conclave in Delhi last year. I brought my family for a several weeks-long holiday in India the year before that. I've been coming and going a lot and it's astonishing to me that suddenly not only my physical presence, but even my image on a video screen is considered to be unacceptable. I think it's pretty shocking," Mr Rushdie said.
In his interview, Mr Rushdie also accused politicians of being hand in glove with extremists.
"But my overwhelming feeling is a disappointment on behalf of India, which is a country that I have loved all my life and whose long-term commitment to secularism and liberty is something I've praised for much of my life. And now I find an India in which religious extremists can prevent free expression of ideas at a literary festival, in which the politicians are too, let's say, in bed with those groups to wish to oppose them for narrow electoral reasons, in which the police forces are unable to secure venues against demonstrators even when they know the demonstration is on its way," the author added.