SAD hits out at UP CM over his religion remarks

Amritsar: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has censured Yogi Adityanath for saying that “Sanatan dharma is the national religion of India”. The party warned the Uttar Pradesh chief minister not to impress upon the people of other faiths about the superiority of Sanatan.“The ideology which Yogi is trying to propagate is no different from the one that caused the partition of the subcontinent in 1947,” said Delhi state SAD chief Paramjit Singh Sarna on Saturday. Presiding over an event in Rajasthan, Adityanath said “Sanatan dharma is the national religion of India” which every citizen must respect. He had also said if religious places were destroyed or desecrated in the past, then a campaign to restore them should be run on the lines of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.Sarna said let Yogi run a campaign for the religion he professes, but he shouldn’t intervene in the internal affairs of any other religion.Pointing out that being an elected law-maker Yogi was under oath to treat every religion equally and respect every tradition, Sarna said the UP chief minister had on several occasions carried Guru Granth Sahib on his head. “So we expect that Yogi will also be aware of what’s written in Guru Granth Sahib,” he said.“Guru Arjan Sahib, the fifth Nanak, compiled writings of various thinkers from disparate backgrounds… I would not accept any definition about Sikhs because that’s already defined by our Gurus,” said Sarna. “From Baba Farid of Pakpattan, Bengali poet Jaidev, Kabir, Dhanna, Namdev, and so forth, the writings in Guru Granth Sahib span 500 years of the most enduring and egalitarian thoughts. We expect Yogi to respect all those traditions from the heart when he has carried Guru Granth Sahib on his head,” he added.