Senior Congress leader and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor’s remark that the BJP aims to create a “Hindu Pakistan” gave a handle to the ruling party on Thursday to paint the Congress as an “anti-Hindu, anti-India” party.

Demanding an apology from the opposition party on Tharoor’s comments, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said the Congress has made it a habit to “insult India and Hindus”.

“There is nothing more abusive and condemnable than what Shashi Tharoor has said. Such abuses of the Indian democracy have become commonplace for the Congress. By saying ‘Hindu Pakistan’, you (Tharoor) have attacked the Indian democracy and the Congress party has once again abused Hindus. This is the time when the Indian economy has progressed, we are ahead of developed countries like France. Even then, for the purpose of appeasement, the Congress does not spare any chance to insult India,” said Patra.

According to the BJP, the Congress’s “hatred for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP” has now escalated into anti-India sentiments.

“In its hatred for the BJP and Modi, the Congress has started abusing India and the Indian democracy. Rahul Gandhi used the term khoon ki dalali for surgical strikes. Ghulam Nabi Azad said the Army kills innocent people. Mani Shankar Aiyar went to Pakistan and said the Modi government needs to be toppled and Saifuddin Soz stood with Pervez Mushrraf and said Kashmir needs independence. The Congress is fast becoming an anti-India and anti-Hindu party,” said Patra.

Note of caution

The Congress, on its part, struck a note of caution with the party’s media in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala advising partymen to be careful with their public statements when the BJP is trying to polarise the country on communal lines and paint the Congress as anti-national and anti-Hindu.

“The Modi government thrives on an unprecedented atmosphere of division, bigotry, hatred, intolerance and polarisation. The Congress, on the other hand, represents India’s civilisational values of pluralism, diversity, compassion and harmony between faiths and ethnicities. India’s values and fundamentals are an unequivocal guarantee of our civilisational role and set us apart from the divisive idea of Pakistan. All Congress leaders must realise this historic responsibility,” said Surjewala in a series of tweets.

Tharoor, the author of a recent book titled Why I am a Hindu , stuck to his guns, asking the BJP whether they have abandoned the idea of creating a Hindu Rashtra and asserting that the ruling party has a narrow vision of what constitutes being a Hindu.

“I have said this before and I will say it again. Pakistan was created as a state with a dominant religion that discriminates against its minorities and denies them equal rights. India never accepted the logic that had partitioned the country. But the BJP/RSS idea of a Hindu Rashtra is the mirror image of Pakistan — a state with a dominant majority religion that seeks to put its minorities in a subordinate place. That would be a Hindu Pakistan, and it is not what our freedom movement fought for, nor the idea of India enshrined in our Constitution,” said Tharoor in a Facebook post.

“Many proud Hindus like myself cherish the inclusive nature of our faith and have no desire to live, as our Pakistani neighbours are forced to, in an intolerant theocratic state. We want to preserve India and not turn our beloved country into a Hindu version of Pakistan,” Tharoor added.

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