BJP says no need to react to Thackeray’s criticism of Gadkari's statement - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday said that it was not in the business of always reacting to statements issued by leaders of other parties, even if they were key allies. Senior party leader Ravishankar Prasad said: “We (BJP) don’t need to or feel the need to react,” when asked to comment on Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray’s criticism of BJP president Nitin Gadkari’s appeal to the Muslim community on the Ram Temple issue. Prasad, however, said that while both the BJP and the Shiv Sena were allies, their political philosophies were distinct and separate, and therefore, views on issues would naturally be different. He was reacting to an article in Saamna, the Shiv Sena mouthpiece, where Bal Thackeray wrote, "Appealing to Muslims (to help in building Ram temple) is an insult to hundreds of kar sevaks who became martyrs during the Ram temple agitation." “Gadkari has appealed to Muslims. Exactly to whom has he appealed because the leadership of radical and jehadi Muslims is no longer in India but in Pakistan, where terror outfits wield the remote, dictating Muslims in India what to do and how to behave," the Sena chief added, before questioning, "If permission of Muslims is to be sought for building the Ram temple, why was the temple agitation launched in the first place?" Urging the BJP to stick to the Hindutva ideology, Thackeray said, "Hindus could have fallen at the feet of the Imam of Jama Masjid and got a piece of land for Ram temple. It was easily possible. But Hindus have shed blood for the Ram temple."