In a message to the Congress party, senior party leader and former Defence minister AK Antony on Wednesday advised the party to take the majority along as minorities alone will not suffice in the fight to bring down the Bharatiya Janata Party’s rule. Antony, a member of the Congress Working Committee, was addressing party workers on the occasion of the party’s 128th foundation day.
A majority of the people in the country are Hindus and the Congress needs to take them along in this fight against fascism and Narendra Modi, Antony said.
Maintaining that the minorities have the freedom to practice their religion, Antony disagreed with the party’s strategy to portray people from the Hindu community going to temples or wearing a tilak or a bindi as “pursuing a soft-Hindutva line”.
“The Congress is trying to bring the Hindu majority as well as the minorities in the party fold,” Antony said, adding that depicting such attempts as part of the Congress’s “soft-Hindutva line” would “only help Modi”.
The BJP, however, has criticised the Congress over Antony’s statement and accused the party of practising a divide and rule policy.
“For the Congress, Indians are not Indians. They are divided in majority and minority, Hindu and Muslims… That explains Rahul Gandhi’s temple hopping,” tweeted BJP spokesperson Amit Malviya.
This isn’t the first time that Antony has come out against the Congress’s poll strategy. After the party’s debacle in the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, a panel that Antony headed held that pitching the elections as a fight between secularism and communalism was responsible for the party’s loss.
The Antony committee report further found that the “minority-appeasement policy” of the Congress had proven to be counter-productive.
He has, on another occasion, stated that minorities in Kerala have secured more privileges and benefits from the government. “Unlike the rest of India, minority communities here dominate the state’s political and administrative echelons. It cannot be allowed,” he had said.