Testing times for BJP

Sir — This refers to the editorial, “Don’t kill conscience” (April 13). Two recent horrific crimes has jolted the nation’s conscience — one in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao being the rape of a minor girl, allegedly by a BJP MLA and another rape of an eight-year-old child of the nomadic Bakerwal tribe at Jammu’s Kathua. Ironically, politicians, across party lines, take great pride in referring to Jammu & Kashmir as the jewel in India’s crown. It is sad that the NDA Government has failed to to deal with the issue.

The BJP is in danger of going the Congress way. In fact, some will say it already has. Corruption and criminality had come to define the grand old party which ruled the country in the early two decades after Independence. The BJP in power may be fast acquiring the character of the party it replaced. Ensuring justice for the Unnao and Kathua rape victims is a challenge which the BJP should accept and pass to counter the charge that it is another Congress, albeit with a different name.