Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Hindutva’ comment irks BJP

The BJP on Tuesday hit out at Congress President Rahul Gandhi for his remark that he does not believe in any variety of Hindutva, saying it was “humiliation” of the majority community and disrespectful” to Hindu philosophy. The party dared the Congress leader to use such words against any other religion, asking him to clear his stand as to why he does not have faith in Hindutva. “In a closed-door interaction with editors, Rahul Gandhi said he does not believe in Hindutva –‘soft’ or ‘hard’. One can understand if you say you don’t believe in fanaticism but to say that you don’t believe in Hindutva is shocking,” said BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra at a press conference.

“A few days back he had said that Congress was a ‘Muslim party’ and today he said he has no faith in Hindutva. It is humiliating to a majority community,” said Patra. “Whenever he senses a benefit, he becomes a janeu-dhaari, and when he sees an adverse reaction, he leaves his ‘janeu’ and forgets Lord Shiva,” he said .”By making such remarks, you (Rahul Gandhi) are playing with the faith of thousands of Hindus,” he said. On his remark that the Congress wants to defeat the BJP and the RSS in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Patra said: “Now, we doubt that you want to defeat the Hindus.”

In an interaction with editors, Gandhi did not agree that he was embracing soft Hindutva to appease the majority community .”I don’t believe in any kind of Hindutva, soft or hardcore,” he said. Gandhi said there was nothing wrong in his meeting religious leaders and visiting religious places.

Also Read: Rahul Gandhi, Aditya Thackeray slam PM Modi over Rupee slump