New Delhi: The BJP on Monday used pictures of Congress politicians eating at a restaurant to allege the party's nationwide fast against social discord was a "farce" and proof that it was shedding crocodile tears over caste violence.
The brief presence of Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler, accused in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, at the Delhi unit's fast at Rajghat too gave the BJP an opportunity to ridicule the Congress's concern for social harmony.
The Delhi Congress leaders seen eating chhole bhature in pictures circulating on the social media, however, claimed the photos showed them breakfasting at 8am and that the "symbolic fast" was to be held only from 11am to 4pm.
As for Sajjan and Tytler, the party quickly ordered them off the stage.
But the BJP described the chhole bhature breakfast as a "joke" on Dalits, saying it proved that for all their talk of bringing about a change, Congress leaders could not abstain from even a single meal.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said the presence of Sajjan and Tytler had exposed the Congress's violent face. He described the Congress's decision to move the duo off the main dais as "an admission of guilt".
Patra also took a dig at Rahul Gandhi for turning up at Rajghat at 1pm, two-and-a-half hours after the fast had started.
He alleged the Congress chief could not wake up in the morning even for a day as he and his colleagues were used to the "politics of luxury".
Patra contrasted this with the "politics of performance" symbolised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who he said came from a backward caste family and had worked to bring Dalits into the mainstream.
"You cannot wake up in the morning, cannot escape even one meal, but you claim of bringing about a big change.... You have played a joke on the poor and Dalits while sitting in Rajghat," he said.
"The Congress has fallen into its own trap. What we have seen from Rahul Gandhi today is not a fast but the farce of a fast, an attempt to fast-track his politics to burnish his credentials despite people rejecting him time and again."
