Left, BJP using violence as instrument of politics: Cong

New Delhi: Congress today utilised the controversial remarks of CPI-M functionary M M Mani on instances of his party eliminating its political rivals to target both the Left and the BJP, accusing them of using “violence as an instrument of politics”. Party spokesperson Manish Tewari also chose the occasion to hit out at Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. [caption id=“attachment_323934” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Party spokesperson Manish Tewari also chose the occasion to hit out at Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.”]  [/caption] “The irony of this is that the first person to condemn it is the Chief Minister of Gujarat, a state which is confessing to fake encounters before the High Court,” he said. Tewari said that Mani’s statement flags a larger issue about the “use of violence as an instrument of politics”. He said that while on one hand there is an extreme doctrine of Left Wing Extremism of Maoists that believes in violent means, on the other hand is the extreme Right or religion based groups like Jihadists. Tewari said that in the mainstream politics there is also “Left, which says we prepare lists, killed one, clobbered one to death…in democratic space at the right, there is a political party, which inspires from a group like Abhinav Bharat (whose members were arrested in terror cases).” He said that the larger question was use of violence to achieve political power. “We need to very seriously ponder how do we get rid of the toxin of violence from our body politic,” Tewari said, cautioning against the manifestations of violence in mainstream politics. An embarrassed CPI-M in Kerala yesterday also ticked off its senior functionary Mani over his controversial remarks that there have been instances of the party eliminating its political rivals. In Ahmedabad, Modi lashed out at the CPI-M, saying it was using language similar to the one used by terrorists. PTI