Mumbai, June 01: Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray targeted Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday, asking her what religion she would mention as hers in the census.
It was Thackeray’s way of reasserting his opposition to a caste-based census. He appealed to all Hindus to register as Hindu only.
“On the occasion of the census, I have a question regarding Sonia Gandhi and her family. Keep the caste aside. Which religion will Sonia mention as hers in the census? The country must know it,” Thackeray stated in an article in party newspaper Saamna.
“Islam and Christianity are becoming strong because the Hindus are divided into castes and sub-castes. Hindus should bury the caste differences and unite to fight the disaster,” he said.
Thackeray, however, deviated from his earlier stand that the formation of states on linguistic basis had divided the country. “The people of Punjab should be registered as Punjabis in the census. Ditto with the Bengalis from West Bengal,” he said.
The Shiv Sena chief pooh-poohed the attempt of deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal to take credit for the prime minister’s announcement in Parliament that there could be a separate count of the other backward castes. “I do not think anyone will do any such thing that will divide the country,” Thackeray said.
A source in the Shiv Sena said Thackeray’s statement regarding Sonia Gandhi’s religion was an attempt to revive the dispute over her foreign origin.
“Sonia registering herself as a Christian will give us the chance to campaign that she still has not adopted her husband’s religion and kept her maiden identity intact. We will remind the people that she had not adopted the Indian citizenship for quite some time after marriage,” he said.
Interestingly, a Shiv Sena MP from Kalyan, Anand Paranjpe, had supported the idea of a caste-based census in his Lok Sabha speech on May 6. He had demanded that foreign migrants, particularly from Nepal and Bangladesh, should not be enrolled in the national population register.
—Agencies