"Under Congress, India Was Partially Muslim Nation": BJP On Hindutva Row

Keeping up its attack on the Congress over the opposition party's criticism of Hindutva, the BJP claimed on Saturday that India was partially a "Muslim nation" when it was in power as sharia provisions were then part of the legal system and measures were taken to give them primacy even over Supreme Court judgment.

BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi alleged that the violence in Maharashtra over the "false" news of mosques being targeted in Tripura and Congress leaders' comments attacking Hindutva were part of a conspiracy.

Attacking Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, he wondered if the opposition leader was training his party workers in Maharashtra in defaming Hindutva and driving an organised campaign to stole communal discord and violence.

It was during his speech via video conferencing to Congress workers at a training camp in the state that Mr Gandhi had sought to draw a distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva, and had attacked the latter.

The BJP has been on the offensive after Congress leader Salman Khurshid compared Hindutva, a term associated with the RSS-BJP ideology, with terrorist Islamist organisations.

Noting that Shivaji's rule was also associated with Hinduism, Mr Trivedi said leaders like Rahul Gandhi cannot comprehend the concept and asked him to read up his own party stalwarts like Mahatma Gandhi, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Nehru, he added, had written that the word "Hindu" can be understood in the broader context of Indian identity and should not be seen narrowly.

"Under the Congress rule, India was partially a Muslim nation. I am saying so because sharia provisions were part of the constitutional system," the BJP leader said, referring to the practice like instant talaq, now barred, and grant of Haj subsidy, since discontinued.

"Supreme Court judgment was overruled to give primacy to sharia provisions," Mr Trivedi said in an apparent reference to the Rajiv Gandhi government bringing a law to override a Supreme Court order in the famous Shah Bano case.

He took a swipe at Congress leaders for giving their "wisdom" on Hinduism and referred to their use of terms like Hindu Taliban and Hindi terrorism to hit out at them.

These are the same people who do not want a proud India to bloom in all its glory, and are trying to stop its rise, he claimed.

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