BJP would face backlash for fielding Pragya Singh Thakur in election: Akhilesh Yadav

Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav on Friday attacked Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for giving Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur a ticket from Bhopal in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.

"India will never forgive BJP for giving Sadhi Pragya Thakur a ticket," he said in a tweet responding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's comment on Friday that "I will never be able to forgive Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur".

Thakur on Thursday stoked a huge controversy and left the BJP red-faced with her comment that Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse was a 'true patriot', a statement her party condemned and asked her to apologise for it immediately.

The Opposition parties had attacked her saying what she said reflected the mindset of the people nurtured in RSS ideology.

Thakur, an accused in the Malegaon blast case, is not new to courting controversies. After being fielded by the BJP in Bhopal, she had said Hemant Karkare, who was killed during the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, died because she had cursed him. The statement had attracted all-round criticism including from the BJP which disowned it.