The BJP’s inimical and nauseating ideology of religiously dividing the people for its political gains will never succeed in south India, Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala has said.
Speaking to reporters here on Thursday, he said the BJP, which was whipping religious sentiments of the people over the past few decades ahead of elections for fetching the votes and consequently coming to power, had started doing the dirty politics once again as the party had to face Assembly polls in five States. The BJP, in this line, had created unrest in Karnataka by creating the ‘hijab’ issue in schools and colleges again for political gains.
The fuel price hike, which was being done ritually at regular intervals even though the crude oil price in the international market had crashed to touch all-time low, had been put on hold, again considering the elections to be held in 5 States. The fuel price that had reached all-time high in the country, would go up further once the elections in these States were over, he predicted.
Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K.S. Alagiri, who accompanied him, said the RSS and the Hindu Maha Sabha never believed in democracy and Indian nationalism and were supporters of the British even as the Congress was leading the freedom struggle with Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru being the chief warriors.
“However, RSS and the BJP leaders, who had never spent even an hour in the prison for fighting for India’s independence, are glorifying Naturam Godse, who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, by erecting his statue and garlanding it. The worst part of it is that the BJP and their supporters are justifying the killing of Mahatma by Godse today in the name of religion. We, the Indians, believe in democracy and unity in diversity, while the RSS and the BJP are dividing people by whipping religious sentiments and working overtime to take India backward to its ancient era,” Mr. Alagiri said.
On the hoisting of saffron flag on the premises of a college in Karnataka as part of the ongoing unrest by the Hindu outfits against ‘hijaab,’ he said the saffron flag would never become the national flag of India. “It can only be a flag of riots,” he said.
When asked about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claim that he was the ‘hero of farmers,’ he said Mr. Modi, who adamantly refused to meet the farmers protesting in Delhi for more than a year demanding the withdrawal of anti-farmer laws despite losing 700 agriculturists during the agitation, could never be the farmers’ friends. “He’s is the villain of farmers,” he noted.
After participating in the party workers’ meet held at Nanguneri, Mr. Chennithala and Mr. Alagiri addressed the party meeting held in Palayamkottai in the evening wherein they introduced party’s candidates for the upcoming urban civic polls.
