[Photo: Jitendra Awhad Facebook Page]
Mumbai: Jitendra Awhad, Housing Minister in Maharashtra, while addressing a public meeting called against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Poulation Register (NPR) asked the BJP leaders of their contribution in the freedom struggle of India.
"Main Delhi ke takht se poochta hoon, ab tu maangega mujhse saboot mere deshvasi hone ka? Toh sun, jab tera baap sar jhukakar angrezon ke talwe chaat rah tha, tab mera baap phansi ke takht ko chhom ke Inquilan Zindabad ke naare laga te hue maut ko gale laga reha tha.." Jitendra Awhad said while addressing the rally.
(I want to ask the people at throne in Delhi, will you ask me proof of my being Indian? So listen. When your ancestors were licking the boots of British, my ancestors, starring at the gallows of death, were raising slogans of Inquilab Zindabad and embracing martyrdom..)
While addressing the public gathering in Pune, Jitendra Awhad also said that Muslims could tell where their grandfather were buried but Hindus would not be able to tell the place where the cremation of their ancestors was performed.
"I want to ask my Hindu brothers, sitting here, where your grandfather's last rites took place? Muslims can tell where the graveyard is", he said.
Unlike leaders of Congress and other political parties which ruled India, contribution of BJP and its leaders in India's Freedom Struggle against British is zero. In contrast to the sacrifices made by Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and people of other communities and organisations, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the patron of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), asked its cadres to stay away from the freedom struggle.
M.S. Golwalkar, who became the leader of the RSS in 1940, continued and further strengthened the isolation from the independence movement. In his view, the RSS had pledged to achieve freedom through "defending religion and culture", not by fighting the British.
Golwalkar lamented the anti-British nationalism, calling it a "reactionary view" that, he claimed, had disastrous effects upon the entire course of the freedom struggle.
The BJP condemned the statement made by Jitendra Awhad for making "unwarranted anti-Hindu statement".
"Jitendra Awhad's insulting remarks on funeral practices of Hindus is extremely derogatory and disrespectful to Hindus across the nation. To appease Muslims, NCP leader & state minister has descended to a new low, to deride and insult Hindu rituals", the chief spokesperson of the BJP Telangana unit, K. Krishna Saagar Rao, said in a press release.
Rao also asked the top leadership of the NCP if they supported the statement made by their minister. "BJP wants to know, if Sharad Pawar endorses this deviant statement made by his party leader? Has NCP become an anti-Hindu party?" he said.
The BJP has demanded that Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray clarify on his minister's "unwarranted and unprovoked insinuation by Minister Jitendra Awhad."
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