It’s an attack on democracy, Hindus: BJP

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor was the source of a major controversy on Thursday, a day after he predicted the creation of a “Hindu Pakistan” if the BJP were to return to power in 2019. The BJP described it as an “attack on the Indian democracy and Hindus” even as the Congress sought to distance itself by counseling restraint to its leaders in their comments.

Tharoor, an MP from Thiruvananthapuram , Kerala, said if voted to power the BJP will rewrite the Constitution to create a Hindu-Pakistan. The controversy he triggered charged the political circles with the BJP and the Congress  already in poll mode for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The comments by Tharoor sparked demands from the BJP for an apology from Congress president Rahul Gandhi while his party voiced its disapproval and cautioned its leaders to exercise restraint in their response to what it called saffron party’s “hatred”.

Union Information & Broadcasting Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore also assailed Tharoor, dubbing his remarks as “pure hallucination”. “If they have been able to win a repeat of their current strength in the Lok Sabha, then frankly, our own democratic Constitution, as we understand, will not survive... Because then they will have all the three elements they need to tear up the Constitution of India and write a new one.

“And that will enshrine the principle of Hindu Rashtra, that will remove equality for the minorities, and that will create a Hindu Pakistan...And that is not what Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad and great heroes of freedom struggle fought for,” Tharoor told an event in Kerala capital on Wednesday.

The BJP came out strongly against Tharoor with party spokesman Sambit Patra calling it “extraordinary” as it was an “attack on the Indian democracy and Hindus”.

“Yet again Tharoor has cattle-classed Indian democracy. The Congress’ character is that it crosses the ‘Lakshman Rekha’ (limit) in its hatred for Narendra Modi and the BJP, and in doing so, it assaults  Indian democracy,” he told reporters in Delhi. It is shameful to denigrate one’s own country, one’s own country’s democracy, to denigrate the Hindu religion time and again.

“This is a shameful act for which Rahul Gandhi should come out and not only apologise but explain to us why any leader of that party,  whenever they open their mouth, they speak this way,” he said.

Tharoor, however, got some support from former vice president Hamid Ansari who said “ whatever he says, he will say after thorough consideration”.

But unaffected by the controversy, a combative Tharoor took to Facebook on Thursday  to defend his comments, insisting that the BJP and RSS’ idea of a Hindu Rashtra was the “mirror image” of Pakistan. He also told TV channels, “I don’t see what exactly I need to apologise for the BJP’s point of view... If they are no longer interested in the idea of Hindu Rashtra they must admit. Until they do so, how can one apologise for reflecting their point accurately?”

However, Congress’ communication in-charge Randeep Surjewala, in a series of tweets, said, “India’s values and fundamentals are an unequivocal guarantee of our civilisational role & set us apart from the divisive idea of Pakistan. All Congress leaders must realise this historic responsibility bestowed upon us while choosing words and phraseology to reject BJP’s hatred.”

“I have said this before and I will say it again. Pakistan was created as a state with a dominant religion that discriminates against its minorities and denies them equal rights. India never accepted the logic that had partitioned the country.”

He said the BJP/RSS idea of a Hindu Rashtra is the mirror image of Pakistan  a state with a dominant majority religion that seeks to put its minorities in a subordinate place.