Jaipur: The Rajasthan state Congress president Govind Singh Dotasara has once again been caught in a controversy over his statement on the great warrior of Mewar Maharana Pratap. Dotasara had said that the fight between Rajput warrior Maharana Pratap and Mughal emperor Akbar was a power struggle, but the BJP has given it a “religious” colour. Now BJP is targeting Congress for doing appeasement politics and demanding an apology.
Govind Singh Dotasara was addressing party workers at a district-level training camp in Nagaur on Wednesday. He said, ‘The BJP had changed the syllabus on the lines of Vidya Bharti and included the fight between Pratap and Akbar as religious fight, while it was a struggle for power The sees everything through the Hindu-Muslim religious point of view.’
The statement has now created a political row as BJP leaders are targeting Dotasara and Congress for appeasement politics. The BJP state president Satish Poonia said that it was a fight of nationalism and not a power struggle. ‘It was not a power struggle, but a fight of nationalism. You have already given controversial statements on this matter. Why is there so much fear in your Congress party of losing Muslim votes?” Poonia tweeted.
While former CM Vasundhara Raje tweeted ‘the Congress has challenged the self-respecting history of Mewar by describing the struggle of Pratap and Akbar as a fight for power only. It was a struggle for national security. Congress should publicly apologize to the public for insulting such a mighty warrior.
Notably, it is not the first time that statements on Maharana Pratap have crated political row. When Dotasara was the education minister of the state he had said ‘let the experts decide who was Mahan between Pratap and Akbar,’
And it is not only Dotasara even the veteran BJP leader Gulab Chand Kataria caught in controversy for derogatory comments on Pratap during the assembly by-election of Rajsamsnd and had to apologize. At that Congress had targeted Kataria.
Maharana Pratap was the Rajput ruler of Mewar in Rajasthan who fought the battle of Haldighati with Akbar in 1576.
