After Shashi Tharoor's controversial 'Hindu Pakistan' remark, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has raked up another row by comparing Prime Minister Narendra Modi with controversial Pakistani leader Zia-ul-Haq.
Pointing out that extremism leads to terrorism, Singh said that a similar kind of religious extremism is being promoted under Prime Minister Modi's governance in India as done by former Pakistani dictator Zia-ul-Haq that led to a spurt in neighbouring country Pakistan.
"Extremism leads to terrorism. Religious extremism as promoted by Zia-ul-Haq in Pakistan led to a spurt in terrorism there. There is religious extremism being promoted by ruling government in India, the so-called Hindutva, this is a similar dangerous trend," Digvijaya Singh told the media.
Citing an example of Pakistan governance during Zia-ul-Haq's tenure, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister added, "In Pakistan, Zia-ul-Haq started giving importance to bodies like Jamaat-E-Islami. Ever since he started supporting bodies like Taliban, Pakistan has more terror activities taking place than India. There are more bomb blast in Pakistan, who are the people behind this? They are not foreigners but Pakistanis themselves, who's dying? Muslims themselves, no one else."
"What's happening in Afghanistan? The thing is it's a fight of ideologies, wherever such intolerance and such ideologies exist, there will be terrorism and such intolerant ideologies gives birth to terrorism, religious intolerance give way to terrorism," Singh said.
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq was a Pakistani four-star general who served as the 6th President of Pakistan from 1978 until his death in 1988, after declaring martial law in 1977. He remains the country's longest-serving de facto head of state.
Last month, Digvijay received flake after he commented that all Hindu-religion terrorists who had been caught in the past were connected to the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) in some way.
On a related note, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor had said that if Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wins 2019 Lok Sabha elections it will create a condition leading to the formation of a 'Hindu Pakistan'.
Tharoor's statement drew flak from various political quarters, with the BJP demanding an apology from the Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)