Middle East

Minister accused of fomenting religious tension in India

Patna: Federal minister Giriraj Singh has landed in trouble after making controversial remarks about Indias Muslim community, wherein he described them as “descendants” of Ram, a Hindu deity.

A social activist, Tamanna Hashmi, filed a complaint case against Singh, a senior member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in a local court for hurting the religious sentiments of the Muslim community.

The court has admitted the case and posted the matter for hearing on November 3.

“The ministers comments have hurt our religious sentiments. We all Muslims are descendants of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH),” Hashmi told the media after the filing the complaint.

The case was filed in the Muzaffarpur district court on Tuesday.

Singh who holds charge of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises portfolio had made the controversial reference to Muslims lineage in a recent speech.

“Muslims are descendants of [deity] Ram and not of Mughals. If they dont support the cause of Ram Mandir, they know well that Hindus will hate them. If this hatred increases then Muslims can well imagine the consequences,” Singh was quoted as saying in the English daily The Times of India.

He made these remarks at Baghpat town in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday.

The Congress alleged the BJP leadership was doing this with the sole intention to rally Hindu sentiments fearing the strong disillusionment prevailing among supporters over its failure to fulfill its pre-poll premises.

“The BJP has lost it huge support base among voters and an impending defeat stares them in the next polls,” senior Congress leader Baliram Sharma said. “So the BJP people are making controversial and communal remarks to fan up Hindu sentiments and get their support but they will not succeed in their attempt this time.”

Sharma, a state Congress delegate and Gaya district vice-president, said the masses had given a huge mandate to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in the last Lok Sabha polls but the government did just nothing, resulting in resentment among voters.

“So now that the next general elections are barely few months away, the BJP has been constantly trying to create communal tension across India to get the support of the majority Hindus,” Sharma told Gulf News over phone on Wednesday.

According to him, the BJP has apparently become restless after losing support of traditional upper caste voters in the aftermath of passing the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and the awarding of promotion in reservation.

“You know how the upper caste people have gone on protesting on the streets and are showing black flags to the NDA ministers now. This never happened before and the BJP know this could cost them dear if it failed to divert the peoples attention from real issues,” explained Sharma who himself comes from upper caste Bhumihar community.

Giriraj Singh is known as a fire brand BJP leader and has been constantly issuing controversial speeches. Barely a couple of days back, he demanded renaming all places associated with Mughals who ruled India for some 200 years.

Earlier he had blamed Muslims for the rising population in India and sought for bringing a law to control the population boom. He has also gone on record saying those opposed Narendra Modi must go to Pakistan.

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