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Pushing its newly acquired agenda of opposing the family planning program and promoting large families, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has now gone to the extent of felicitating parents who have more than half a dozen children.
The Hindu fundamentalist organisation, that has been doing every thing to rekindle the Hindutva flame, now appears to be taking the cue from saffron clad Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Sakshi Maharaj, who not very long ago, gave a call to Hindus to have large families with anything more than six children.
Reports reaching from Budaun said that the VHP organised a special function in the Western UP town on Sunday to felicitate all local parents who had 6-11 kids.
As many as 11 families were identified with 6 to 11 children and Sadhvi Prachi of the VHP made it a point to honour each of them at what was titled as ‘Virat Hindu sammelan’.
The felicitation was carried out by showering of flower petals on each of the parents who were ushered on to the dais and introduced to the gathering as ‘proud’ parents.
She made it a point to justify her advocacy for producing more and more children by alleging that members of other communities were going about expanding the size of their families therefore it was pertinent for Hindus too to follow course.
While a standing ovation was given to Dwarka Prasad, who claimed to have produced as many as 11 children, among others to be ‘honored’ were Giriraj and Sriram (with nine children each), Ompal, Bhudev and Mahesh (seven) and Purshottam Yadav , Pappu Yadav and Sreepal (six).
Ironically VHP’s influence has been on the wane after it success with spearheading the demolition of the Ayodhya mosque in 1992. Repeated desperate attempts by its leaders Ashok Singhal and Praveen Togadia to incite communal passions have proved counter-productive, following which the organisation has been coming up with all kinds of antics.