Rohtak (Haryana), Sep 6(ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Rajnath Singh on Sunday warned the party members to avoid talking about Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the man who BJP holds responsible for the division of the country and massacre of lakhs of people, failing which would invite a strict action from the party.
“Jinnah was responsible for dividing the country into two. We won’t accept a person like Jinnah, who was responsible for the massacre of lakhs of people. So, if anybody talks about him, we won’t hesitate to take a strict action against him or her,” Rajnath Singh said.
BJP crisis boiled over after senior party leader Jaswant Singh was expelled for writing a book sympathetic to Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and BJP hold Jinnah responsible for India’s partition, and its strong views on that were notices at the expulsion of Jaswant Singh.
Singh further said that BJP was not against Muslims, on the other hand it has always sought to unite people belonging from different religions and creed. (ANI)
‘I have not read Jaswant Singh’s book,’ says Bhagwat
New Delhi, Aug.28 (ANI): Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Mohan Bhagwat said on Friday that he was yet to read expelled BJP leader Jaswant Singh’s latest book – Jinnah -India, Partition, Independence.
Bhagwat’s comment came hours after Singh filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Gujarat Government’s decision to ban his book.
Deploring the ban of the book, Singh has already said that books are a medium of expression in the country, and professed the right to freedom of speech and expression.
He claimed that a ban on books actually means a ban on thinking.
“I am greatly saddened by it because the other example takes you to Salman Rusdie and Satanic Verses. The day we start banning books in India, we are banning thinking,” Jaswant had said while returning back from Shimla after his expulsion from the BJP last week.
The Narendra Modi-led Gujarat Government had banned the sale of Singh”"”s book in the State last week.
The Gujarat Government blamed Jaswant”"”s book for denigrating the image of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was a Gujarati and held in high esteem by people across Gujarat and rest of the India for his role during India”"”s freedom struggle against the British rulers.
Jaswant observes in his book that Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel together conceded Pakistan to Jinnah with help from the British.
Patel occupies a pride of place in BJP”"”s historiography with the party eulogising his tough action for the integration of rebellious Hyderabad and Junagarh with the Union, and contrasting it with the Nehru”"”s “blunder” in taking the Kashmir issue to the UN. (ANI)