Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday asserted that in the absence of any development agenda, what the Bharatiya Janata Party wants is to create a “Hindu rashtra”.
Speaking at the Kolkata Literary Meet here, Tharoor also claimed the real “tukde tukde gang” is the ruling party which is dividing the country into “bits and pieces”.
“With no development on its agenda, the ruling party is making a complete exposition of its agenda to create a Hindu rashtra,” Tharoor, also an acclaimed author, claimed.
The present central government does not have the mentality for development, the Congress leader alleged.
“The real tukde tukde gang is the ruling party which is dividing the country into bits and pieces. The party wants to divide us further the way the British Raj did through the divide and rule policy”, he said.
“Tukde tukde gang” is a term often used by the right- wing parties to attack those who they think are out to divide the country. The term was coined and used against the Left and
Left-backed outfits during the campus unrest at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2016.
“Should religion be a determinant for nationhood? Mahatma Gandhi went for a secular India, unlike Pakistan which went on to become an Islamic state. “Our Constitution reflects dignity and equality for all. The Constitution reflects that and also essentially rejected the idea of religion-based citizenship,” Tharoor said.
For the first time in India, religion is considered as a determinant for citizenship and excluding one religion, Islam, the former Union minister said.
“The onus will be on us to prove that we are Indians,” the Thiruvananthapuram MP claimed.
BJP leaders often quote Swami Vivekananda but the monk in his famous Chicago speech had greeted people of all faiths of the world as brothers and sisters, he said.
“But BJP has reduced this to six faiths and three nations”, Tharoor said. He was referring to the amended Citizenship Act that seeks to provide Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis entering India on or before December 31, 2014 from Bangladesh,