In a veiled swipe at Congress, Union Minister and BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Saturday cautioned minorities against the "political merchants" of their votes who he said are wearing the veil of secularism.
Addressing the State executive meeting and the training camp of BJP's Minority Morcha for Maharashtra here, Naqvi said during the last 75 years post Independence, "the political merchants of minority votes played 75 tricks on their political chessboard to deceit minorities".
"Creating the atmosphere of fear, raising a bogey of intolerance, spinning a web of religion, and spreading rumours is their expired formula to politically exploit minority communities," the Deputy Leader in the Rajya Sabha said.
Naqvi said minorities must remain cautious about such "political merchants who are wearing the veil of secularism while roaming around with a cart of conspiracies to hijack minority votes". In his speech, the senior BJP leader slammed "pseudo-secularists" for their double standards.
"The height of hypocrisy of pseudo secularists is that the Shiv Sena gets a communal stamp when it remains with the BJP and gets a certificate of secularism when it goes with the Congress. This pseudo-secular syndicate is running a certificate centre which makes someone secular and someone communal within minutes," he said.
