Senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya today criticised Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi for his statement on "RSS ideology" in connection with the killing of Karnataka journalist Gauri Lankesh.
In his comments, Rahul had said anybody who spoke against the ideology of the BJP and RSS was "pressured, beaten, attacked and even killed".
Vijayvargiya said the Congress-led Karnataka government was "directly answerable" for the incident which was the fallout of the "poor" law and order situation in the southern state and not Prime Minister Narendra Modi or the RSS ideology.
Terming the killing "unfortunate", the BJP general secretary said the incident should not be politicised.
"The killing of the woman journalist is unfortunate. But it should not be given any political colour," he told reporters after holding a meeting with BJP workers at the local party office.
"Merely 12 hours after the incident, he (Rahul) gave a statement that there is no freedom of speech in the country. There is a Congress government in Karnataka and it has its own chief minister. If a journalist is murdered in Karnataka, then how can Modi ji or Sangh's ideology be answerable," he asked.
Vijayvargiya questionned why Rahul and members of the opposition were refusing to admit that law and order situation in Karnataka was poor.
"The Siddaramaiah government is answerable for Lankesh's killing. But the opposition people are criticising Centre over the incident. However, it will not affect health of the BJP in anyway," he said.
When asked about the August 30 convention held here under JD(U) rebel Sharad Yadav, Vijaywargiya took a dig, saying "the number of people who gathered for that meeting is similar to that of attendees of a corner meeting of a colony".
On the charge by opposition that demonetisation was a failure, he said the opposition leaders need to understand Economics.
"Return of crores of rupees in banks does not mean that black money got converted into white. Thousands of suspected persons are being questioned on how their accounts received the money," the BJP leader said.
He also criticised the opposition for alleging that the BJP-headed Haryana government had failed to maintain law and order after the conviction of controversial Dera head Gurmit Ram Rahim in rape cases.
