Mumbai: BJP chief Nitin Gadkari had “insulted” supporters of the Ram Janambhoomi movement by appealing Muslims to help Hindus in building a temple at Ayodhya, said Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray on Saturday.
"Appealing to Muslims is an insult to hundreds of kar sevaks who became martyrs during the Ram temple agitation," said Thackeray said in an editorial in his party newspaper Saamna. The editorial is the second time the BJP and Shiv Sena, allies for over 20 years, have disagreed over their Hindutva ideology.
He made a "sincere appeal" to BJP that it should stick to the Hindutva ideology.
"The Prime Minister of this country says Muslims have the first right over India's resources and 80 crore Hindus tolerate it meekly. Muslims have everything and Hindus don't even have their Ram temple. Things have come to such a level that Hindus have to plead to Muslims (to allow Ram temple)," Thackeray said.
"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, who belongs to Gadkari's home state, said.
Thackeray said: "if permission of Muslims is to be sought for building the Ram temple, why was the temple agitation launched in the first place?
"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," he said.
Weeks ago, Thackeray had criticized Gadkari for saying that Mumbai belongs to all Indians.
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