Odishatv Bureau
New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday slammed Arun Jaitley over his reported comment that the BJP was using Hindutva as an opportunistic tool saying it exposed the real face of the opposition party and demanded an apology from him.

"The BJP gave full credence to the WikiLeaks. So we test them by their own standards," Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters here.

"The BJP should either publicly state that their stalling of Parliament over WikiLeaks revelations was wrong and apologise to the nation," Sibal said.

Senior Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed said he was not surprised by the WikiLeaks cables, first accessed by `The Hindu`.

"We are not surprised. No leak was necessary for this as it was known to the entire world that BJP used religion only for political purposes," he said.

Ahmed alleged that the BJP only wanted to divide the society on the basis of religion to garner votes.

WikiLeaks cables had reported that Robert Blake, Charge at the US Embassy, had conveyed to his government, after a meeting with Jaitley on May 6, 2005, that "Jaitley argued that Hindu nationalism `will always be a talking point` for the BJP. However, he characterised this as an opportunistic issue."

Jaitley has maintained that he had not used the word "opportunistic".

Terming Jaitley`s response as "ridiculous", Ahmed said, "When anything (in the WikiLeaks cables) is against the Congress and the Government, they believe it as gospel truth but if something goes against them, they behave entirely in an opportunistic way.

"It shows double standards of the BJP and the RSS. Time has come that they should openly accept before the nation that uptil now they were trying to fool the people of the country in the name of religion for political gains," said Ahmed, a former Union Minister.

   

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