No good Hindu would want temple to be built by demolishing mosque: Shashi Tharoor

New Delhi: Kicking up a row, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor remarked that no “good” Hindu would favour a Ram temple in Ayodhya by demolishing somebody else’s place of worship. Tharoor, the MP from Thiruvananthapuram told this at an event in Chennai on Sunday.

Huffington Post has quoted Shahi Tharoor as saying, “As a Hindu, obviously, I am conscious that a vast majority of my fellow Hindus believe that that was the specific birthplace of Ram. For this reason, most good Hindus would want to see a Ram temple at the site where Ram was supposed to be born. But I also believe that no good Hindu would have wanted that a temple be built by demolishing somebody else’s place of worship.”

The remark drew stinging criticism from the BJP. BJP has dubbed Congress party and its chief Rahul Gandhi as “anti- Hindu”. Party’s national spokesman Sambit Patra said they “exposed” the real face of Rahul Gandhi.

Tharoor said that his comments were personal and not those of his party. Condemning malicious distortion of his words by some media in the service of political masters, Tharoor asserted, I said: “most Hindus would want a temple at what they believe to be Rams birthplace. But no good Hindu would want it to be built by destroying another’s place of worship.”