Shiv Sena slams BJP over Vaidik-Hafiz Saeed meeting

Amid opposition uproar over the issue in Parliament, Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana Wednesday said the government in New Delhi cannot just shrug off its responsibility by saying it has nothing to do with the meeting.

It said if Congress were in power, the BJP would have attacked it on the issue. Shiv Sena said the government should go deep into the matter.

Shiv Sena said if Vaidik is let off then tomorrow anyone will go and have biriyani with Dawood Ibrahim or Tiger Memon or Hafiz Saeed.

Sena called the meeting as one amounting to sedition.

Earlier, with Parliament witnessing uproar over the meeting of journalist Ved Pratap Vaidik,  who is a close associate of Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, with  26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed in Pakistan, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said it was a "diplomatic  misadventure of a private individual."

"This is a diplomatic misadventure of a private individual. The Indian government has nothing to do with this person," Jaitley stated in the Rajya Sabha.

He said his proposition on a separate Kashmir speaks about Vaidik's distance from the party as the BJP was one party which was against it.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also categorically pointed out in the Lok Sabha that the Indian government did not aide in the meeting. She said her government had no knowledge about the meeting.

"He met on his own. To link him with the government or to call him the aide of BJP is wrong," Swaraj said.

This comes after Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said he is an "RSS man".

"The man is an RSS man. That is a known fact. We are curious to find out if Indian embassy facilitated this meeting and helped this gentleman in the meeting," Gandhi told reporters on Tuesday.

Congress MP and former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor also said the meeting was not possible without the knowledge of the Indian government.

He also said that what kind of journalism he was doing as the picture posted by Vaidik showed him with no notebook or pen.

Even his interview was not published anywhere, Tharoor said.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which is alleged to have links with Vaidik, also cleared that he was not a Sangh member.

According to his Wikipedia profile, Ved Pratap Vaidik  is a scholar, political analyst and free lancer columnist of India. It says he had been with Press Trust of India as the founder-editor of its Hindi news agency “Bhasha”. Before that he was the Editor (views) in Nav Bharat Times. At present, he is the Chairman of Bhartiya Bhasha Sammelan.

Baba Ramdev  defended Vaidik and said he met Saeed as a senior journalist and tried to change his heart.