Maharashtra’s newly elected minister and BJP leader Nitesh Rane has once again sparked a wave of controversy with his anti-Muslim inflammatory rhetoric. This time he provocatively reinterpreted the acronym EVM (Electronic Voting Machine).
Speaking at a Hindu Garjana Sabha in Sangli, Rane declared that “EVM” means “Every Vote Against Mullah,” escalating his pattern of making hate speeches.
Rane levelled allegations against the opposition parties alleging that they are falsely blaming EVMs. He said such parties do not tolerate the united voting pattern exhibited by the Hindus.
Reacting to Rane’s statement, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, on Saturday, condemned it as ‘shocking’ and said that this kind of remark was contrary to the inclusive values upheld during India’s freedom struggle.
Tharoor said that targeting any particular community is wrong. He asserted that everyone is a citizen of the country and that’s the only way for the country to progress.
Speaking to news agency ANI Tharoor stated, “This kind of thing is quite shocking. In our country, we have to understand the basic lesson of the freedom struggle, which is that when one set of people said that religion is the of their nationhood and they went away and created Pakistan, Mahatma Gandhi onwards, our leader said we have fought for the freedom of everybody and we will create a country for everybody, we will write a constitution for everybody, and everybody will live here with equal rights”.
“I must say that people picking on any one community, whether it’s against Muslims, Hindus, Christians, or any caste, is all wrong. We are all equal individual citizens of India, and that is the only basis on which our country can progress,” he added.
Meanwhile, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen spokesperson Waris Pathan said, “Nitesh Rane has a habit of talking such nonsense. He got rewarded for making absurd statements against Muslims. The Maharashtra Government even made him a minister. Earlier also he had said that he would enter mosques and kill Muslims”.
“He has over 20 FIRs filed against him for hate speech but he is never arrested. This clearly states that Maharashtra CM is involved in this,” he added.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader also condemned Rane’s remarks and said that the minister is a threat to the social harmony of Indian society. She also called for his immediate arrest and stressed that he should be removed from his post.
“This is a hate speech and this man should be arrested. This man is a threat to India as this is not the first time he has made such an outrageous communal statement… The fact that he continues as a minister is a reflection of the hypocrisy of the BJP and the RSS… Prime Minister talks of the Constitution and here his minister is destroying the basic foundation of the Constitution through this hate speech, so he must be removed from his post,” Karat said as reported by TOI.
Rane made this statement following his recent provocative speech in which he called the southern state Kerala a “mini Pakistan” and claimed that ‘terrorists’ voted for Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.
“You know how Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra won assembly elections because terrorists in the state voted for them to become Members of Parliament (MP)”, he said.
Following a backlash, Nitesh Rane attempted to soften his statement. He strategically shifted his rhetoric to focus on demographic concerns asserting, “Kerala is very much a part of our country”.
“The decreasing population of Hindus is something that everyone should worry about. Religious conversion of Hindus into Christians and Muslims is becoming an everyday thing there. ‘Love Jihad’ cases are also increasing there. I was comparing the situation with the way Hindus are treated in Pakistan,” he said while speaking to ANI.
Rane who is infamous for derogatory and communally levelled speeches against religious minorities, especially targeting the Muslim community of India faced multiple FIRs earlier in September across Maharashtra for inflammatory speeches.
In Ahmednagar, he threatened to enter mosques and “hunt down” those who criticized a Hindu religious seer Mahant Ramgiri Maharaj. The seer had who made derogatory remarks about Islam and the Prophet Muhammad that led to widespread communal unrest.
