NCP to mobilise parties against Sangh Parivar threat

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, OCT. 19. Both the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) today went hammer and tongs at the BJP not condemning the RSS chief, Mr. K. Sudershan, for his diatribe against the minorities.

The NCP blamed the new aggressiveness and arrogance of the Sangh Parivar for contributing to the dilution of the Country's secular ethos. Speaking here on behalf of his party, Mr. Devendranath Dwivedi said it would soon initiate moves to mobilise other parties, to fight the grave threat posed by the RSS and the Sangh Parivar.

He charged the Sangh Parivar with creating a feeling of insecurity among not only minorities but also liberal Hindus. Referring to Mr. Sudershan's demand that Muslims prove their loyalty by adopting Hindu Gods as their ancestors, Mr. Dwivedi said ``religion and nationalism are unrelated.'' Loyalty tests ``would only pave the way for religious McCarthyism in the country.''

The very talk of asking minorities to take loyalty tests was distasteful. `` we live in a civilised society and cannot allow this to happen.'' The call for Indianisation of Churches and the stress on the Hindu ancestry of the Muslims ``reflect the retrograde theory of cultural nationalism which was a euphemism for religious majoritarianism.'' This was totally unacceptable in secular India.

Mr. Dwivedi said relations between the RSS and the BJP were no longer an internal affair. ``They fall in the public realm and the BJP's support to the Sangh ideology is posing a danger to the country.''

The Congress, on the other hand, took off from where it had left yesterday. Its spokesman, Mr. Anand Sharma, accused the BJP of being a ``communal party which speaks with total disregard for the pluralistic character of the country.''

He also accused the BJP of speaking with a forked tongue, first speaking its mind in Agra and then going back on it. ``Having said what they believe, they have now resorted to a hamhanded attempt to retract, this is clearly a party which does not say what it means.''

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Section  : National
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