Ballia: Shankaracharya Parishad chief Swami Anand Swaroop on Wednesday hit out at Rahul Gandhi, saying his recent remarks on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was an attack on Hindutva.
On Monday, Congress leader Gandhi asserted that no religion talks about spreading hate and said Adityanath cannot be a religious leader for the language he uses.
During an interaction with civil society members on the recently-concluded Bharat Jodo Yatra in Delhi, Gandhi had alleged that Adityanath was “insulting” the history of his Gorakhnath Math by the kind of language he was using.
“I am sorry, he (Adityanath) is not a religious leader, he is a common thug,” Gandhi, was quoted as saying by an attendee at the meeting, which was not open to the media.
In a video released on Facebook, Swaroop said, “Calling a ‘siddh mahant’ and yogi of a ‘siddh peeth’, who has no one of his own, a thug will not be tolerated. Yogi Adityanath is chief minister later, first he is a seer and a monk of a ‘siddha peeth’.”
The chief the parishad, a council of seers, said that “an attack on a monk is an attack on Hindutva”.
Demanding that the Uttar Pradesh government immediately file a case against Gandhi, he said the Congress leader has insulted a “yogi” to serve his political motives.
Swaroop alleged that Gandhi’s remarks, will prove to costly for his party and him.
Alleging that Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is giving patronage to his party leader Swami Prasad Maurya, who had made remarks against the ‘Ramcharitmanas’ recently, Swaroop said that Maurya himself lost the assembly election and cannot steer the ship of the party.
“When Swami Prasad Maurya has become a Buddhist, how can he remain a Maurya now? How can he declare himself the leader of the backward class? Backward class is the soul of Hindutva,” he said.
Follow on Twitter | Posted by Neha Khan | 
