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Signalling a tough line on the issue of chanting ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ despite controversies, Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah on Thursday said 99 per cent people were agreeable to hailing ‘Mother India’ with the slogan and the party would ‘convince’ the rest.
Speaking at the India Today Conclave in New Delhi, Shah justified the government’s action on the JawharlalNehruUniversity row, insisting that some people deciding to hold a programme to commemorate Afzal Guru’s death anniversary in itself is ‘anti-national’.
In his over-an-hour-long interaction, the BJP president expressed confidence of that his party will form a government in Assam but reacted cautiously about its prospects in other states, saying the party will work to increase its influence and play a role in government formation in these states.
Responding to a number of questions on the controversy surrounding the issue of chanting ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, Shah said that the particular slogan was in vogue even before the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh and the BJP came into picture.
"99 per cent of people agree with the slogan. This debate is irrelevant. Those who do not want to chant this should be asked what is their problem with this slogan. We will convince the one per cent people, who do not want to chant it,” Shah said but declined to answer how will the BJP go about it.
“You leave it to us, how will we do it,” he said.
When asked whether All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi, who said he would not raise the chant hailing ‘Mother India’ ‘even if a knife is put to my throat’, is a traitor, he said, “No one becomes a traitor due to just one thing” adding, “We will have to consider all other things and then come to a conclusion.”
The BJP chief also said there is no need to say ‘Bharat Maata Ki Jai’ under pressure from the RSS or the BJP.
“This slogan is being chanted much before the RSS and the BJP came to power,” Shah said.
Asked about controversial comments made by party general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya that those who do not chant the slogan should be sent to Pakistan, the BJP chief said one should rather listen to what Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and he himself said.
When asked about raising of anti-national slogans in places like Jammu and Kashmir, where the BJP had allied with People’s Democratic Party, he referred to the arrest of separatist leader Masarat Alam and said he would have never been arrested had the BJP not been in power.
Alam was sent to jail even when the PDP was in power in Jammu and Kashmir, Shah said when asked about PDP's alleged soft corner for Afzal Guru.
When asked about a Supreme Court observation that merely raising anti-India slogan is not treason, he shot back, saying that the same court had once said that calling Congress activists goondas was also treason.
Congress was in alliance in Kerala with Muslim League, which was responsible for India’s partition, Shah said.
At this Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who was seated among the audience rose and defended the alliance, saying the Muslim League in Kerala was different and was founded after the partition. Tharoor said its policies were not communal.
When told about the allegations that his government was crushing freedom of expression, Shah shot back asking ‘give me one example’.
Rejecting the charge, Shah said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was called ‘Hitler, Ravan, and a mass murderer’ but the BJP did nothing against those who called him names. “We will tolerate criticism against people and government but not the country,” he said.