BJP slams Rahul over remarks on Hindutva

The Bharatiya Janata Party yesterday hit out at Congress president Rahul Gandhi for his remark that he did 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, and asked him to clear his stand why he did 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,” BJP spokesman Sambit Patra said at a press conference in New Delhi.“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.“By making such remarks, you are playing with the faith of thousands of Hindus,” he told Gandhi.In an interaction with editors in Hyderabad, Gandhi said he 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.His differences with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gandhi insisted, were ideological and not personal.Gandhi, on a two-day visit to Hyderabad, predicted that Modi would not become prime minister in 2019.He said the BJP would not even get 230 Lok Sabha seats and hence there was no question of Modi continuing in office again. The BJP tally would be cut primarily due to the alliance among non-BJP parties in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.He also said that several allies of the BJP, including the Shiv Sena, were against Modi becoming the prime minister for a second term.Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s daughter-in-law N Brahmani was among industrialists who attended a meeting of CEOs addressed by Gandhi yesterday.The presence of Brahmani and Andhra Pradesh cabinet minister N Lokesh, T G Bharath, son of Telugu Desam Party MP T G Venkatesh and some industrialists considered close to the TDP was significant in view of the recent political developments.Bharath told reporters that Gandhi promised that if voted to power in the next general elections, the Congress would accord special category status to Andhra Pradesh as committed by the Congress-led government in 2014 at the time of the bifurcation of the state to carve out Telangana.In March, the TDP pulled of the BJP-led alliance over its refusal to accord the special status. Subsequently, Naidu had shared the dais with Gandhi during the swearing-in ceremony of H D Kumaraswamy as the Karnataka chief minister.Last month, the Congress also backed a no-confidence motion moved by the TDP against Modi’s government.During the interaction with the industrialists, Gandhi shared his vision and what he plans to do for industry, especially the small and medium enterprises.