BJP has repaid debt by fielding Pragya, says Uma Bharti

BHOPAL: Canvassing for Bhopal Lok Sabha candidate Sadhvi Pragya, Union minister Uma Bharti on Friday said BJP has repaid some of its debt to Thakur by giving her the Bhopal ticket. Former CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan held a roadshow for her.

“When Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur was in jail, Ajmal Kasab was also in jail. Kasab would be offered biryani and mineral water, but when Pragya Thakur would ask for water during third-degree, what they used to be put her in mouth I cannot say it,” Bharti said.

“She would be beaten black and blue and asked to take the names of some big BJP leaders and organizations, but she bore all the pain and did not give in to her interrogators and did not tell any wrong name,” Bharti added.

This was the 'karz' BJP owed her, she said.

“If she had told the wrong names, there would have been a storm in this country. BJP has not done her a favour by giving her the ticket. In fact, BJP has repaid some of its debt. Pragya is Durga, Laxmi, Kali and Saraswati,” she added.

A few days ago, Bharti had touched Pragya’s feet and called her a 'big saint.

Bharti addresses Pragya as ‘Didi Ma’ though she is 10 years younger to her. She said she first met Pragya during her 1999

Lok Sabha polls

in Bhopal when Pragya was in the Vidyarthi Parishad. Bharti visited her twice in Nashik and Bhopal jails.

“Terms like ‘Hindu terror’ came during UPA’s rule. Hindu and terror cannot be linked,” she said.

“Indian Muslims know that they are safer as neighbours of Hindu due to which they did not go to Pakistan after Partition. Leaders who teach secularism in India must go and teach it to Pakistan. By this, I do not mean that leaders who talk of secularism in India must leave India.”

“After the World Trade Center attacks, a Bollywood hero, who goes by the name Khan, was stripped and searched in America, but it cannot happen in India. A Hindu can never be ‘ugra’ (fiery) but it is time to be ugra to protect nationalism and save the country and its pride,” she said.

Putting rest to speculation that she plans to quit politics, Bharti said: “I will fight the 2024, 2029 and 2034 Lok Sabha polls and will not leave politics till my last breath. But he next one and a half years, I want to spend walking on the banks of Ganga, she said, adding: “Today is my birthday.”

She called Congress candidate from Bhopal Digvijaya Singh as ‘Dada Bhai’. “When Digvijaya Singh asked people at an election rally recently whether Rs 15 lakh had been deposited in their accounts, a youth came on stage and said Indian Army did surgical strike on Pakistan. Digvijaya, Rahul, Priyanka, Akhilesh, Maya and Mamata Banerjee have to understand that pride for the people of country is in India hitting back at Pakistan and not in getting Rs 15 lakh. Congress is leftover of British rule,” she remarked.

People of Bhopal are against Digvijaya and they will defeat him, she said. “He should take sanyas. The life of

Madhya Pradesh

Congress government is alpayu (short),” she added.

Leftists are like Krait: Bharti

Union minister Uma Bharti equated communists with snakes on Friday. “The Leftist snake hates India, Indians and Indian culture. Their population is less, just like the Krait, but very poisonous,” she said, after addressing a rally in Bhopal in support of BJP candidate Pragya Singh Thakur. She was reacting to reported controversial statement of CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury that Hindu mythologies like Ramayana and Mahabharata prove that “even Hindus can be violent”.