Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Sunday commented on leaders of the party skipping the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha and said it did not mean they were “relinquishing” the deity to the BJP.
In an exclusive interview with India Today TV, Tharoor said, “As somebody who has been praying to Ram from his childhood onwards, I’m not going to surrender my Ram to the BJP. I don’t think BJP has any copyright on Ram or any other manifestation of the divine.”
Senior Congress leaders, including party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had announced that they would not attend the consecration ceremony as it was an “RSS/BJP event”.
Shashi Tharoor said he would choose his own time to go and added, “It probably will have nothing to do with politics because I go to temples to pray. I don’t go to do politics.”
He added that the Congress never said anything negative about Hinduism or Lord Ram and the party only said the consecration ceremony was “politicised”. He added that going to the event would have meant being “complicit in the ruling party’s political exercise”.
“You have the Prime Minister who is no purohit conducting the Pran Pratishtha,” Tharoor said of the event which took place on January 22.
He also countered the “anti-Hindu” claims by critics of the party and said, “Suddenly for them to say that because we didn’t come we are anti-Hindu is absurd. Eighty percent of India is Hindu. Eighty percent of Congress is also Hindu.
We have no reason whatsoever to subscribe to the view that Hinduism is defined by participation in a BJP-conducted exercise starring the Prime Minister. I don’t think that is necessarily Hinduism at all.”
ON INDIA BLOC’S PM FACE
When asked about the lack of a prime ministerial candidate for the INDIA bloc, the Congress MP said the alliance’s focus is on issues and not personalities.
“In a parliamentary system, you choose a party. You are choosing a set of policies. The only people who get to vote for Mister Modi are the people of Varanasi. Everywhere else, you have your candidate who is going to represent you in Parliament.
That is the way the system works. So let me just say that, in principle, we are going to try and focus on the issues and not on personalities,” said Shashi Tharoor.
He added that several prominent leaders in the INDIA bloc can take up the position, and it can be decided after the Lok Sabha elections.
Shashi Tharoor also disagreed that the INDIA bloc is dismantling despite Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s leave and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee saying the TMC would fight the polls alone.
“I think that right from the start it was made clear that the seat adjustments will only take place on a state-by-state basis. We do not have a one-size-fits-all approach in our country. The realities in Bengal are different from the realities in Bihar,” said the Congress leader.
He added that there may be two or three states where there is no agreement, but overall, there is not much controversy.
“At the end of the day, whoever wins from the opposition side is bound to support the INDIA Alliance government,” said Tharoor.
