NEW DELHI, INDIA, April 2, 2002: The VHP on Monday, states this article in the Hindustan Times, advised Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to confine himself to politics and leave matters of faith to religious leaders. “It is better if he (Vajpayee) confines himself to politics and leaves matters of faith to religious leaders,” VHP senior vice-president Acharya Giriraj Kishore told reporters when asked about the Prime Minister’s statement seeking to distance himself from hardline “Hindutva” proponents. The article states that the VHP also sought to justify the continuing violence in Gujarat describing it as a “popular upsurge and people’s answer to jehadi terrorism.” “The Indian state and (pseudo) secularism has failed to protect Hindus and control jehadi terrorism and hence people are making up their mind to defend themselves. What is happening in Gujarat is not communal riots but people’s answer to Islamic jehad,” VHP international general secretary Praveen Togadiya said. He alleged that Indian polity, including NDA, has been practicing “one-way secularism” and acting as a defendant of jehadi terrorism. While asserting that the VHP was not justifying the violence in Gujarat, he said, “What is happening in Gujarat is an upsurge, a rebellion.”
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