INDIA bloc talks about destroying 'Sanatan Dharma', won't be able to sustain in states: Manoj Tiwari

Raipur: The opposition grouping ‘INDIA’ which talks about “destroying” ‘Sanatan Dharma’ will no longer be able to sustain even in states, BJP parliamentary Manoj Tiwari said on Wednesday and defended his party’s move to field MPs in upcoming assembly polls.

Tiwari, the MP from the North-East Delhi constituency, was in Congress-governed Chhattisgarh to attend BJP’s ‘Parivartan Yatra’ in Bilaspur and Mungeli districts.

Assembly elections in Chattisgarh are due by the year-end.

Targeting the Congress over the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), which has more than two dozen opposition parties, Tiwari said, “The biggest thing is on what basis they (Congress) will win? They have formed an alliance that says it will destroy Sanatan Dharma.”

The BJP has been targeting the Congress after Tamil Nadu minister and DMK leader Udhayanidhi Stalin compared the Sanatan Dharma with diseases like dengue and malaria and called for its eradication. The DMK is a constituent of the INDIA bloc.

“They are nowhere ahead of BJP or NDA in good governance… if they are moving ahead with an agenda of destroying Sanatan Dharma then I don’t think that they will be able to sustain even in any state,” Tiwari told reporters reporters at Raipur airport.

To a question about the BJP’s strategy to field MPs in the upcoming assembly elections, Tiwari said the move shows how seriously his party is taking the contests.

Through its second list of candidates for the Madhya Pradesh elections, the BJP has fielded seven MPs, including three Union ministers, and a national general secretary.

Asked about the Congress’ claim that the BJP does not have well-known faces for assembly polls and therefore lining up MPs for the Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh polls, Tiwari said, “If MPs are contesting assembly elections it shows that we are taking the polls very seriously. If they (Congress) think we are not taking elections seriously then it is their strategy.”

Hailing the BJP’s Parivartan Yatra in Chhattisgarh, the MP said the "vibration of change" can be felt in streets, villages and cities of the state.

People are voluntarily standing against the “misrule” of Congress in the state, he added.