Govt does not endorse religious discrimination, says Home Minister

NEW DELHI: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday said there was no discrimination by the government against anyone on the basis of caste, creed and religion after an agitated Opposition sought actions against Shiv Sena backed Marathi newspaper, “Saamna” for publishing an article seeking disfranchisement of Muslims and a BJP member for allegedly seeking forced “sterilisation of Muslims and Christians”.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in the Lok Sabha in New Delhi on Tuesday. PTI

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 21

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday said there was no discrimination by the government against anyone on the basis of caste, creed and religion after an agitated Opposition sought actions against Shiv Sena backed Marathi newspaper, “Saamna” for publishing an article seeking disfranchisement of Muslims and a BJP member for allegedly seeking forced “sterilisation of Muslims and Christians”.

In a damage-control attempt, the Home Minister in Lok Sabha said that the Indian Constitution does not allow any discrimination on the basis of caste or creed," while reacting to comments made by a BJP member seeking compulsory sterilisation of Muslims and Christians and Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut who had written an article calling for disenfranchisement of Muslims.

The Home Minister was responding to zero hour mentions by some of the Congress members.

Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge demanded that the government should register a case against the newspaper for carrying such remarks.

Kharge chided the ruling party saying “instability was being brought upon by your own MPs and your affiliated organisations. Do you want to bind the country or break it”.

Earlier, raising the issue, MI Shanavas of the Congress alleged that some "responsible people" in the ruling party were trying to tarnish the image of minorities in the country by making such statements.

Aam Aadmi Party’s Dr Dharamvir Gandhi asked the Home Minister as to why such people were not arrested.

Earlier this month, All India Hindu Mahasabha vice president Sadhvi Deva Thakur had made a statement at a function in Haryana stating that “Muslims and Christians must undergo sterilisation to restrict their growing population which was posing a threat to Hindus”.