Rajasthan Assembly elections 2023: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday hit out at the Opposition’s INDIA alliance over DMK leader Udhayanidhi Stalin’s “eradication of Sanatan Dharma’ remarks, accusing the bloc of insulting ‘Sanatan dharma’ for votebank and appeasement politics.
“I have been observing the INDIA alliance for the past two days. You [Opposition alliance] want power? But at what cost? For the past two days, you have been insulting this country’s tradition, this country’s history, Sanatan Dharma,” Shah said while addressing a gathering during the launch of ‘Parivartan Yatra’ from Dungarpur in poll-bound Rajasthan.
“The two main parties of the INDIA coalition, Congress and DMK — the son of a finance minister and son of a chief minister — have been saying that Sanatan Dharma should be eradicated,” Shah continued.
“To do appeasement and vote-bank politics, these people have insulted the Sanatan Dharma,” Shah added.
Udhayanidhi, the Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs in the Tamil Nadu government and son of Chief Minister M K Stalin, said at an event on Saturday in Tamil, “Few things cannot be opposed, they should be abolished. We can’t oppose dengue, mosquitoes, malaria or corona, we have to eradicate them. In the same way, we have to eradicate Sanatana (Sanatan Dharma), rather than opposing it.”
The BJP leader further lashed out at the DMK leader alleging that he called for “80 per cent population of Bharat, who follow Sanatan Dharma”.
Dubbing the INDIA alliance “ghamandiya gathbandhan”, Shah said the alliance can go to any extent for votebank politics but “the more they talk against ‘Sanatan dharma’, the less they will be visible”.
“Today, the UPA government and Congress leaders say that if Modi wins, the rule of Sanatan Dharma shall prevail. Sanatan Dharma rules the heart of the people, no one can remove it,” the union home minister further said.
On Ayodhya’s Ram temple, Shah alleged that the Congress blocked the temple for years but after the Supreme Court order, “Modi did bhumi pujan and a grand temple is going to be ready in January on the same land where Ram was born”.
“The INDIA alliance cannot stop it,” he said.