NEW DELHI, June 20: India's opposition Hindu nationalists on Sunday shot down renewed calls to dismiss Gujarat's hardline leader, who is accused of abetting anti-Muslim violence in the western state.
"There is no proposal to change the leadership of Gujarat at this juncture," Venkaiah Naidu, president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), told reporters after a meeting of top party leaders in New Delhi.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had come under fresh scrutiny after police said they gunned down four Muslims, including a 19-year-old woman, last Tuesday because they allegedly plotted to assassinate the state leader.
India's ruling Congress party has suggested that the shootout was a set-up to build sympathy for Modi and demanded an impartial probe. Former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, breaking with his party's longstanding backing of Modi, said last week that a BJP national meeting set to start on Tuesday in Mumbai would consider replacing the Gujarat leader.
Vajpayee also said for the first time that anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat, which left 2,000 people dead in 2002, contributed to the BJP's upset election defeat in April-May elections.
But Vajpayee's remarks led hardliners to rally around Modi, who had been facing calls for his resignation even from some BJP lawmakers in Gujarat. Vajpayee took part in Sunday's BJP meeting, which was seen as an attempt to clear up intra-party disputes instead of airing them publicly at the Mumbai convention. -AFP
