BHOPAL: Following various political leaders praising Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a BJP candidate from Madhya Pradesh has put the saffron party in the corner, by making a similiar statement.
While addressing an election meeting in Ranapur town of Jhabua district, MLA and party candidate from Ratlam-Jhabua Lok Sabha constituency GS Damor said that the country would have never been partitioned if Jinnah was made India’s first Prime Minister instead of Jawaharlal Nehru. Jinnah was an erudite advocate, had it been decided to make him India’s first Prime Minister instead of Jawaharlal Nehru, the country would have never been partitioned as a result of which , there wouldn’t have been any Kashmir problem and there would have been total amity between Hindus and Muslims in the undivided India," said Damor.
The former state government engineer also blamed former PM Nehru for the latter's 'stubbornness' which ultimately led to the country’s division
While the Congress was quick to react on the development, the state BJP’s chief spokesperson Deepak Vijayavargiya, said “I don’t have knowledge about any such remarks by a BJP candidate, but if anyone from our party has made such a statement, then it could be his personal opinion and not the party’s official stand.”
The state Congress media in-charge Shobha Oza said, “Love for Jinnah isn’t new for BJP or saffron leaders, as in the past too its leaders have had soft approach towards the Pakistan founder. Spanning from rightist leader Sawarkar to Shyama Prasad Mukerjee and from LK Advani to Jaswant Singh, the saffron leadership, including senior BJP leaders love for Jinnah is well known. While Advani went to the extent of paying tributes at Jinnah’s mausoleum in Karachi in 2005, the former union minister Jaswant Singh wrote a book on Jinnah and praised him as a great man four years later.”
Two weeks ago at an election rally in Chhindwara, Bollywood actor-turned-Congress leader Shatrughan Sinha’s praised the former Pakistan PM for his role in country’s independence and development which caused embarrassment to the Rahul Gandhi-led party in the mid of ongoing Lok Sabha polls. Later, Sinha made a a u-turn from his statements, saying it was slip of tongue, as he intended to name Maulana Azad instead of Jinnah.