Patna: BJP MLA from Bihar, Hari Bhushan Thakur, issued controversial statements on Thursday, asking the government to take away the voting rights of Muslims, and said that Muslims can live in the country as second-class citizens. He further accused the community of working on the agenda of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence to make India an ‘Islamic country’.
‘In 1947, the country [India] was divided in the name of religion and they got another country [Pakistan]. They should go to another country. If they are living here, then I demand from the government that their voting rights be withdrawn. They [Muslims] can live in India as second-class citizens’, Thakur said.
Thakur was reacting to All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) lawmaker Akhtarul Iman’s statement that Muslims should be given rights based on their population. Iman had said that none of his party lawmakers will sing Vande Matram during the assembly’s Budget Session, which began on Friday.
‘He said Muslims are not a minority, and referred to Iman’s stand on Vande Matram and said the AIMIM lawmaker’s membership should be cancelled. ‘There is no word like a minority in the Constitution. What is in the national song? The worship of water, the worship of the land, the worship of the tree, the worship of the flower. If you do not do this, then do not drink water. They have an agenda. Their agenda is to make the whole world an Islamic state’, he said.
Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM), which is a part of Bihar’s ruling coalition, reacted sharply to Thakur’s comments. ‘He seems to have been mentally derailed. India is a democratic country. Such people want to derail the dream of ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas [inclusive development]’ of PM [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi. They are elected only by flaring Hindu-Muslim divide’, HAM spokesman Danish Rizwan said.
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