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Is Mahatma Gandhi anti-national? Omar Abdullah hits out at Pragya's 'patriot Godse' remark

| @indiablooms | May 16, 2019, at 05:17 pm

Srinagar, May 16 (IBNS): Hitting out at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Bhopal candidate Pragya Singh Thakur who called Nathuram Godse a "patriot", former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah questioned whether Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi is an "anti-national".

Abdullah reacted after Thakur on Thursday said Nathuram Godse, the man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, "was a deshbhakt (patriot), is a deshbhakt and will remain one".

"If the killer of the father of the nation is a patriot does that make Mahatma Gandhi anti-national?" Abdullah said.

The saffron-clad Thakur, who calls herself "sadhvi", said this when asked to respond to the ongoing controversy over actor-turned politician Kamal Haasan, saying "Godse, the first extremist of independent India, was a Hindu". 

"Nathuram Godse was a deshbhakt, is a deshbhakt and will remain a deshbhakt. People calling him a terrorist should instead look within, such people will be given a fitting reply in the election," Thakur said.

The BJP has received criticism from various quarters, including international media, for fielding a terrorism-case accused as a candidate.

Six people were killed and more than 100 were injured in the Malegaon blasts.

Godse was a member of the Hindu Mahasabha.

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