The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday accused the Opposition of running a fake news campaign against its senior party leaders to create resentment about them and the saffron party among a few caste groups, PTI reported. The Opposition is resorting to such tactics as it is afraid of losing the Lok Sabha elections, said BJP’s Information Techonology cell chief Amit Malviya.

Malviya said a newspaper report about party chief Amit Shah criticising a specific community was fake news, and claimed that it was tweeted by a senior Congress leader from Madhya Pradesh. The post was later deleted.

“To remain relevant, different Opposition parties are running a campaign of spreading fake news against the BJP and its senior leaders by turning some specific castes against them and the party,” he added.

Malviya said the Opposition, while continuing with its policy of minority appeasement, was attempting to turn people from a few castes against Hindus believed to be BJP supporters.

Malviya alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party had also circulated a fake news report that quoted Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar as saying that he was the chief minister of only one specific caste. “The fake newspaper clip, intended to cause social rift, was widely shared by official handles of AAP leaders,” the BJP leader tweeted. “Arvind Kejriwal, like always, joined them in peddling fake news.”

Malviya was referring to instances of the Delhi chief minister accusing the BJP of being responsible for deleting the names of members of a specific caste from electoral rolls.