New Delhi: The BJP on Wednesday slammed the INDIA bloc meeting as a get-together of “anti-Hindu coordination committee” and cited corruption cases against their leaders, as it kept the heat on the opposition over a slew of issues including remarks on the Sanatan Dharma.
While Union minister Anurag Thakur said leaders of all these opposition parties are facing corruption cases and attacked Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for not speaking on “insults” to the Sanatan Dharma, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra alleged that the INDIA bloc’s agenda is to finish off Hinduism.
Launching a broadside at former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Patra, while taking her maiden name Antonia Maino, claimed that she has for long been behind the “conspiracy to target Hinduism”.
Rahul Gandhi had compared the banned Islamist organisation Muslim Brotherhood to Hindutva and called Hindu extremism a bigger threat to India than Islamic terror outfits, he said.
Like the famous suspense book “Murder, She Wrote”, she has penned “a book: Murder of Hinduism, She Wrote”, Patra alleged in a no-holds-barred attack at the Congress leaders at a press conference.
On the first meeting of the opposition alliance’s coordination committee held in the national capital this evening, Patra said its ostensible agenda may be about the seat-sharing arrangements among its parties but in reality they will discuss how to “finish off” the Hindu religion.
In a swipe at the INDIA bloc, Thakur told reporters, “All of them are people facing corruption and scam charges. Someone is on bail and someone has been to jail. People know them all. Changing the name won’t help. No one has insulted Baba Saheb Ambedkar more than the Congress party.”
He added, “The Constitution does not allow anyone to harm anyone’s faith. Sonia and Rahul Gandhi have not spoken anything about the insults to the Sanatan Dharma.
“Why are they and their Congress party silent? They talk about saving the Indian Constitution on foreign soil but their party and their allies here only talk about tarnishing our Constitution. Sonia and Rahul must answer this.”
Patra dismissed statements of several non-DMK opposition parties dissociating themselves from the Dravidian party on its leaders’ attack on Sanatan Dharma, saying they continue to work together.
Noting that DMK leaders likened Sanatan Dharma to various diseases, Patra asked if worshipping Lord Shiva or Hanuman can be termed AIDS, dengue or cancer.
“Those who could not be true to their soil and land can’t be true to the country’s people,” he said.
What has been said about Sanatan Dharma is not some “foot-in-mouth” remarks but is part of a design to attack the Hindu faith, he alleged.
He noted that Uddhav Thackeray of Shiv Sena (UBT) had recently claimed that Hindu pilgrims to the Ram temple, which is likely to be inaugurated early next year, may fall victim to a Godhra-like incident.”Such an abhorrent remark he has made,” the BJP leader said.
“The Sanatan Dharma, the Hindu religion, the truth, Lord Shiva have endured over centuries and no one has been able to harm them. Nobody can dare to finish them off,” Patra said.
Asked about opposition leaders’ claim that the BJP is raking up the religion issue to divert attention from concerns over unemployment and price rise, he shot back, saying these parties then should not have made insulting remarks about the Hindu faith.
People will democratically defeat their design, he said.
To a question on the positive mention of Mughal king Akbar in G20 literature, Thakur said some people try to spread confusion while the truth is India has been, is and will remain the mother of democracy.
“Along with that, the world is now also seeing the power of a rising India. Both G20 and Chandrayaan have proved India’s might and its potential.
“We have not only become the voice of Global South, the new economic corridor will also present huge opportunities. The world now sees hope in India and hope in the Indian leadership,” he said.
Tamil Nadu BJP leaders told reporters here that the DMK is speaking against the Sanatan Dharma with the Congress’ “endorsement” to divert attention from the “misdeeds” of the MK Stalin-led government in the state and disrupt peace and harmony in the country.
Narayana Tirupathi, the vice-president of the BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit, alleged, “One of their ministers without portfolio is in jail and this has come as a huge setback to the DMK. The DMK is totally restless. That’s why they want to divert public attention in Tamil Nadu from their misdeeds.
“That’s why they are talking about Sanatan Dharma, hoping to get minority votes.”
