New Delhi, September 07: BJP chief Rajnath Singh warned of action against all those who “favour” Mohammad Ali Jinnah. “If anyone dares to praise Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who was responsible for Partition of our country, along with all the horrific incidents that followed, strict action will be taken against them,” PTI quoted Singh as saying at a workers’ conference in Rohtak.
Significantly, at his press conference in New Delhi late last month, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had also argued that the “Parivar could never agree with Jinnah’s thesis that Hindus and Muslims constituted two separate nations”.
A week after the Organiser put Bhagwat’s comments on its front page, Ramesh Patange, one of the most respected Backward Caste Sangh functionaries, belonging to the late RSS chief Balasaheb Deora’s school of thought “laying thrust on social engineering in politics” stressed in the RSS mouthpiece that “ideology alone should be the basis of politics”.
Initially, the BJP had cited “denigration of Sardar Patel” in his book Jinnah: India, Independence, Partition as the reason for Jaswant’s expulsion. The party later argued that it was the “cumulative effect of denigration of Patel and glorification of Jinnah”.
BJP general secretary in charge of Haryana, Vijay Goel, who was also present at today’s function, however, refused to confirm Singh’s statement. “I could not listen to his complete speech,” he said. Asked about the context of Singh’s comments, Haryana BJP chief Krishnapal Gurjar said: “A national leader like Rajnath is only expected to dwell on national issues and not just regional issues. He said that Jinnah was responsible for the sufferings of the people (on account of Partition)”. Asked about the context of Jinnah in Sunday’s speech, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said “he could not speak on the party president’s speech”.
Meanwhile, in another instance of what appears to be the BJP echoing the RSS’s concerns, Prasad urged the government to put pressure on “developed nations to reduce subsidy to farmers before they ask India to do anything similar”.
On Saturday, P Muralidhar Rao, the upcoming BJP ideologue, in an essay in the Organiser, has argued on similar lines. When contacted, Prasad, however, said his statement had nothing to do with the article in the RSS mouthpiece.
-PTI