Write Comment     |     E-Mail To a Friend     |     Facebook     |     Twitter     |     Print

NEW DELHI: A row has erupted after Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar denied that he said in an interview published in Friday’s Indian Express that the Muslim community can live in India but must give up eating beef as it doesn’t violate their faith but that the cow is an ’article of faith’ for Hindus.

After his denial, the Indian Express released the audio of the interview with him.
In the interview published on Friday in the Indian Express, Khattar is also quoted as saying that the Bhagvad Gita and Saraswati are articles of faith for Hindus and that minorities must not violate others’ religious beliefs.

However, the Haryana chief minister’s office clarified on Friday that Manohar Lal Khattar "absolutely did not say" those things to the Indian Express.

Our CM didn’t say anything like this, all he said was we should respect everyone... The newspaper which has posted this news piece has tried to put words in the Haryana CM’s mouth," said Jawahar Yadav, officer on special duty to the chief minister, to ANI news agency.

You can listen to the audio of the interview released by the Indian Express here.

BJP distances itself from Khattar’s remarks, calls them wrong

NEW DELHI: BJP today dissociated itself from the views of Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar that Muslims will have to quit eating beef and said this was not the party’s stand.

"The views expressed by Khattar are not that of the party. I will talk to him and will advise him. It is wrong to say like that," Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said, adding that it is not correct to link anyone’s eating habits to religion.

"This is not the BJP’s position.... It is not correct to link eating habits to religion. People have to keep in mind the sentiments of others and eating is a personal choice of people," he said.

Naidu said no civilized person will support the killing of anyone for his eating habits and termed the Dadri incident as "highly condemnable". The Prime Minister and BJP chief Amit Shah have also expressed their disapproval of the incident.

He, however, said the Dadri incident was a law and order issue concerning Uttar Pradesh and its chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and the Samajwadi Party government should be questioned on it, instead of putting the blame on the BJP-led central government.

The Parliamentary Affairs Minister also denied that intolerance was increasing in the country and said that such incidents have been taking place in the past too.

He alleged that there was a "systematic and malicious campaign" to derail government’s and Prime Minister’s focus on development and growth of the country.

"There is a systematic and malicious campaign against the BJP-led government to divert its focus from development and to derail Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts of making India develop and progress further," he said.

Naidu also termed the protest by writers who returned their awards as "selective" and questioned how many of them had resigned when Emergency was imposed in the country or when the 1984 anti-Sikh riots took place in the aftermath of the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Sikhs were massacred in Delhi.