BAREILLY: BJP MP Varun Gandhi on Saturday slammed those tweeting 'Godse zindabad' and trying to glorify Mahatma Gandhi's assassin on the birth anniversary of the 'Father of the Nation', saying they are irresponsibly shaming the country and should be publicly named and shamed.
Fringe lunatics shouldn't be brought into the mainstream, said the lawmaker from Uttar Pradesh's Pilibhit. He told TOI, “We must not forget the respect that India has internationally because of Mahatma Gandhi and the ideals that he represented."
The Lok Sabha member's comments came after the 'Nathuram Godse zindabad' hashtag became one of the top trends on Twitter with 177,000 tweets and counting.
Gandhi had also tweeted: “India has always been a spiritual superpower, but it is the Mahatma who articulated our nation’s spiritual underpinnings through his being and gave us a moral authority that remains our greatest strength even today. Those tweeting ‘Godse zindabad’ are irresponsibly shaming the nation.”
His tweet soon became one of the most shared as well. It was retweeted by over 4,000 users and liked by 14,000 till the evening.
The tweet received support from young opposition leaders such as Hardik Patel and a few others from UP.
“Thank you Varun Gandhi for taking a morally right and nationalistic stand even though it is against many supporters of your party," the working president of Congress in Gujarat acknowledged.
Congress spokespersons Pawan Khera and Supriya Shrinate also joined in. “Those forces are now in power and are trying to kill all that Gandhi struggled, lived and died for," Khera said while Shrinate lashed out at those "hailing Godse on Gandhi Jayanti".
The BJP leader had earlier supported farmers' protest and sent letters to chief minister Yogi Adityanath with suggestions for their welfare.
