VHP takes potshots at Vice President

Dubs his remark as communal

Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) came out sharply against Indian Vice-President Hamid Ansari over the latter’s pitch for “affirmative action” for Muslims in India. While Ansari had said that “corrective” action by the government was necessary to ensure a common starting point under its official objective of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’, VHP dubbed his remarks “communal”.

Ansari on Monday had called for “corrective strategies” by the state for Muslims, seeking affirmative action on “category differentiation admissible in Indian state practice and hitherto denied to Muslims.” “The default by the State or its agents in terms of deprivation, exclusion and discrimination (including failure to provide security) is to be corrected by the State. This needs to be done at the earliest and appropriate instruments developed for it,” Ansari had said while speaking at the golden jubilee session of the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, an apex body of Muslim organisations, in New Delhi.

The Hindutva organisation also demanded that Ansari either apologise or resign. “Such a demand seeks to push Muslims in dark alleys of dissatisfaction whose consequences will be dangerous. With due respect to the Vice-President’s chair, VHP condemns this rank communal statement. This is a statement made by a Muslim political leader which does not befit the office of a Vice-President. He should either apologise or resign,” VHP joint general secretary Surendra Jain said.

Jain took potshots at Ansari, suggesting that he should rather join active politics. “Indian Muslims enjoy more constitutional rights than they do in many Islamic countries. They have been appeased by various means over the years,” Jain claimed

Meanwhile, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) also came out against Ansari’s remarks, though in a measured way. “It is good that Hamid Ansari is thinking about the welfare of his community. We have always maintained that our vision of development and strategies for it must be centred around the motto of ‘justice to all, appeasement to none’. It is our fundamental stand. In this country, the debate and division of people among minority and majority must be stopped: all are same as citizens. But, on the basis of religion, any strategy can never be positive,” said Delhi Prant Prachar Pramukh of RSS Rajiv Tuli.