New Delhi, Sept. 21: The BJP plans to highlight the “vindictive” Centre’s double standards and “dirty game” for its warning to party-ruled Orissa and Karnataka under Article 355.

Although government sources said the Prime Minister pulled up the two states for attacks on Christians to send a positive signal to the international community before his US visit, the BJP is convinced the step was born out of concerns about Muslim votes.

“This is the result of compensatory pressure,” party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said today.

“Top UPA leaders like Mulayam Singh and cabinet ministers Lalu Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan were getting cornered as facts about Simi came before the nation,” Prasad said.

Their parties, Prasad added, “support” the banned group — the Students’ Islamic Movement of India — and wanted to use some “diversionary” tactic. “(So) they forced the Prime Minister to grant this compensation.”

Prasad said the step to invoke Article 355 was unjustified as both Karnataka and Orissa were doing their best to check the violence.

The BJP leader said the “vacillating” character of the Manmohan Singh regime changed suddenly as it acted with alacrity against Sangh parivar outfits only because of narrow political designs.