Coimbatore : SDPI today accused the BJP of attempting to reap political benefit by dividing people on communal lines like indulging in name-changing spree of cities across the country.

Setting aside serious issues like price rise, especially of petroleum and growing unemployment, BJP was raising the Ram temple issue and diverting the people’s attention from its failure on all fronts, SDPI national president M K Faizy told reporters here on Saturday.

BJP was on name-changing spree of cities in Uttar Pradesh and also Hyderabad and naming medical colleges after Dasaratha and Rama, he said. It was trying to polarise Hindu-Muslim community to bring in communal divide to reap political benefit, with Lok Sabha elections approaching.

BJP policies had taken the country backward and there was no development and India an economic crisis was there, he said.

Even some of the Opposition parties were toeing the BJP communal line, Faizy said and appealed to secular and like-minded political parties to set aside their ego and come together and defeat BJP in the coming Lok Sabha elections.