Some are misleading, some are misled: Naidu on Aamir's remark

In the backdrop of a raging controversy over actor Aamir Khan's remarks on "intolerance" issue, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday said "some people are misleading and some people are misled".

"Who comes in which category, I do not want to say. Some are propagating wrong things some are coming under wrong propaganda. My suggestion is that the situation in India is better than any other country. There is more tolerance in India. People of India are tolerant.

"Recently since our government came, communal clashes have come down. The killing of innocent people by Naxalites have come down. Incidents of atrocities have also come down," he said in an oblique reference to the Bollywood superstar's statement.

Aamir Khan was at the centre of a raging debate a day after he expressed "alarm and despondency" over the rise in incidents of intolerance in the last six to eight months.

Referring to the Dadri lynching incident, the Union minister said some "stray incidents" are blown out of proportion.

"These are issues related to state. Now they are blaming the Centre because they could not digest the emergence of Narendra Modi as world leader. In order to defame Modi they are defaming the country, too.

"M M Kalburgi (killing) incident happened in Karnataka, ruled by the Congress. Instead of taking responsibility the Congress made it political. The Dadri incident happened in Uttar Pradesh, which is ruled by Congress-friendly Samajwadi Party.

"I am not trying to blame them but if you try to play the blame game then you have to take back it because it will boomerang on you. Let us not vitiate the atmosphere. Try to understand the problem and try to address them," Naidu said.

He said as far as the government of India is concerned it has not done anything wrong.

"There are no atrocities by the government. There is no restriction on anybody by the government, no force on anybody by the government. Modi government focuses on development. We are focusing our attention on development and these people are trying to distract from development.

"Bharatiya Janata Party is a rising force in a different part of the country some of the political parties are seeing BJP is a potential state in some of these states," he said.

On the award wapasi issue, Naidu said he would like to remind that some of the people who returned the awards had in past issued public appeal to the people asking them to defeat Modi and not allow him to become prime minister.

"Now after some time after some incidents here and there, they are trying to defame the government and they are becoming tools of the Congress party. This protest is against the mandate of the people. Otherwise issues are local and they need to be condemned and action has to be taken," he said.