Rebuffing RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s suggestion, AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi has said he will not chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ even if a knife is put to his throat.
Owaisi’s assertion, days after Bhagwat said the new generation needs to be taught to chant slogans hailing mother India, drew sharp condemnation from both the RSS and the BJP today while he stood by his statement made at a public rally.
“I don’t chant that slogan. What are you going to do, Bhagwat sahab,” the Lok Sabha MP from Hyderabad said at the rally in Udgir tehsil of Latur district in Maharashtra yesterday.
“I won’t utter that (slogan) even if you put a knife to my throat,” Owaisi said, amid loud applause from the crowd.
“Nowhere in the Constitution it says that one should say, ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’,” he said.
On 3 March, Bhagwat had said the new generation needs to be taught to chant slogans hailing mother India, comments which came against the backdrop of the row over alleged anti-India sloganeering on the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)