Karunanidhi, Ramadoss slam Sushma Swaraj's proposal to declare Gita as a national scripture

CHENNAI: DMK president M Karunanidhi and NDA ally PMK's leader S Ramadoss on Monday condemned external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj's proposal to declare the Bhagavad Gita as a national scripture.

In separate statements, Karunanidhi and Ramadoss urged the Centre to follow the spirit of secularism.

Pointing out that the Constitution has declared India as a secular republic, Karunanidhi said the central government should treat all religions equally and follow the principles of secularism.

Referring to opposition from West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and the Congress, he said the BJP regime was putting itself one step forward and two steps backward through such controversies even though it is engaged in several people friendly measures.

He urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take the government forward carefully without any hindrance to the developmental activities by such controversial views.

Ramadoss accused the Centre of "imposing language and culture and not implementing any laudable schemes" since it came to power in May last.

He said, "Sushma Swaraj's move of pushing the opinion of one section of the people on the entire country is condemnable."

Ramadoss added that there was no denying that the Gita has noble values. "The same values are in the Holy Quran and the Holy Bible. While so, this attempt only strengthens the argument that the Modi government is making efforts to make India a Hindu nation," the PMK leader alleged.

Contending that only the Thirukural by ancient Tamil poet-philosopher Thiruvalluvar had all the standing to be made India's national book, he said the Centre should take steps to declare it so and give up efforts to make the Gita a national scripture.

Quoting a saying, he said Swaraj had invited trouble by expressing such an opinion and recalled controversies like 'Guru Utsav' and the remark of a Union minister which put the Centre in the dock in Parliament.

Pushing for declaring the Gita as a national scripture, the external affairs minister on Sunday said only a formal announcement remained in this regard.

http://ift.tt/12hgoBr Swaraj,Ramadoss,PMK

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