After its drubbing in the recently-concluded Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress on Wednesday indicated that it did not want to rake up the 2002 Gujarat riots as a major issue during the Gujarat Assembly elections later this year. “Actually, we do not want to make it an issue. What happened in 2002 is a serious, shameful and unfortunate episode and we do not want to politicise it,” Congress spokesperson Rashid Alvi told reporters at the party headquarters in reply to queries whether the party would make the riots an issue in the Assembly elections in the state.