New Delhi, India - India's prime minister, in a thinly veiled attack on the opposition Hindu nationalist party, said on Saturday that bigoted forces were trying to destroy the nation's religious harmony.
Forces of bigotry and communalism were trying to tear apart the "fine fabric of our composite culture" in majority Hindu but officially secular India," Congress party Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told an inter-faith meeting.
"What is worse than religious intolerance is the deployment of such intolerance for narrow political gain," Singh added.
The statements came after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was shaken this month by publicity surrounding the release of an anti-Muslim CD during crucial elections in India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh.
The BJP has denied any official role in the production of the CD aimed at winning Hindu votes in Uttar Pradesh that talked about "Hindu girls being forced to adopt Islam" and shows a Muslim man planting a bomb under a car.
Uttar Pradesh has a significant Muslim population.
India's Election Commission is investigating the CD which the BJP's leaders have said was released as campaign material without their knowledge.
"Any political formation trying to incite people in the name of religion, whatever religion, is in fact betraying both religion and our constitution," the prime minister said, without naming the BJP.
Muslims make up about 13 percent of India's billion-plus population.