‘MP status doesn't make you a leader’: Punjab BJP leader slams Kangana Ranaut over farmers' protest remarks

Chandigarh, September 2

Senior Punjab BJP leader Harjit Singh Grewal has said that he had immediately spoken to his party high command after Mandi MP Kangana Ranaut's remarks on the farmers' protests and expressed his displeasure.

Grewal said that he had spoken over phone to Union Minister and BJP president J P Nadda in this regard.

Kangana, the MP from Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, had recently posted a clip of her interview with Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar in which she suggested that a "Bangladesh-like situation" could have erupted in India but for the country's strong leadership.

She then alleged that bodies were hanging and rapes were taking place during the farmers' protests against the now-repealed three farm laws.

"The first thing is that just by becoming a MP, one does not become a leader...connecting with (party's) ideology does not happen in one day. I have been with the BJP for more than 35 years," Grewal told reporters here on Sunday.

"When she said (made the remarks), I immediately reacted and opposed her that it is not ideology of our party," said Grewal, a member of the BJP national executive.

The BJP had last week denounced Ranaut for her disparaging remarks on the farmers agitation, as it expressed disagreement with her views and made it clear that she is neither permitted nor authorised to comment on the party's policy matters.

Speaking on Ranaut's yet-to-be-released movie "Emergency", for which the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has sent a legal notice to the film's producers after the apex religious body of the Sikhs claimed misrepresents the character and history of the Sikhs, Grewal said it is up to the Censor Board to take a call.

"...Censor Board's job is whether they pass or not, the party has nothing to do with that," he said.

"Second thing is that anyone who speaks against 'Khalsa', against Punjab, on that every single worker of the BJP will take a stand," he added.

Meanwhile, taking on the Congress on the issue of 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Grewal claimed that the grand old party had 'honoured' those involved in the riots, whereas the BJP government ensured that those behind the riots are punished.