Red-faced BJP plays down comment, saying the party believes in and respects the diversity of the country.
New Delhi : An embarrassed BJP tried to control the damage after another goof-up by Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar. Khattar, who has been heaping one embarrassing controversy after another on the party, was reported by a national daily as saying that Muslims could live in India but they would have to give up eating beef. Though Khattar and his aides later claimed that the words were published out of context, a video release of the interview negated their claim.
When asked to clarify the party”s position, senior BJP leader and central minister Ravishankar Prasad said ”we believe in and respect the diversity of our country. Our motto is sabka saath, sabka vikas and our govt is working on it”.Prasad was reluctant to comment further on the issue in a bid to put a lid on the whole affair. Till late Friday afternoon, BJP leaders and spokespersons avoided any reaction on Khattar”s interview preferring to leave the job of damage control to the CM and his team. However, with the concerned national daily uploading the video recording of the interview on youtube, the party was compelled to reiterate its position in Delhi.
In the controversial interview, Khattar was replying to questions on the Dadri lynching. He claimed that nowhere did Islam and Christianity say anything about eating beef. Terming the Dadri incident as wrong, he said ”Muslims could continue to live in India but they would have to give up beef because the cow was an article of faith here. Khattar also blamed ”both sides” for the killing of Akhlaq Ahmed in Dadri by some local persons on the suspicion of slaughtering a cow and consuming beef. ”Muslims could continue to live in India but they would have to give up beef because the cow was an article of faith here.”