Amidst the uproar over Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader Udhayanidhi Stalin’s controversial remarks on Sanatan Dharma, Pandit Pradeep Mishra, a well-known preacher or kathavachak from Madhya Pradesh, has criticised the INDIA bloc leader. On Thursday, Mr. Mishra made the remarks in Chhindwara, the home turf of former Chief Minister and the State Congress president Kamal Nath, where Mr. Mishra is holding a religious event on the invitation of the Nath family.
Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the ‘Shiv Mahapuran’ event that’s being held from September 5-9, Mr. Mishra took exception to Mr. Udayanidhi Stalin’s purported remarks comparing ‘Sanatan’ to dengue and malaria, and said that the Tamil Nadu Minister should be asked about his own “Sanatani roots”.
“Ask him, weren’t his parents Sanatani? Were his grandfathers and great-grandfathers not Sanatani? If they term Sanatan Dharma as dengue and malaria and corona, then they will also be called children of malaria and dengue and corona,” Mr. Mishra said, when asked for a comment.
The remarks come even as the Congress, which is an ally of the DMK under the INDIA banner, is facing heat over the issue. The party and Mr. Nath distanced themselves from the DMK youth wing leader’s remarks soon after the controversy erupted.
The issue, however, rages on in Madhya Pradesh. On Thursday, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that those opposing Sanatana Dharma would meet a “political end soon”.
Meanwhile, in what appears to be another move to mitigate the potential damage caused by the ally’s statement, Congress leader and former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh said that no religion had the right to comment on other religions. Mr. Singh made the remark in Bhopal, where he was addressing a padyatra organised on the completion of one year of the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
