Two days after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said a 'Hindu Rashtra' does not mean it has no place for Muslims, the Congress Thursday asked him to clarify if the Babri Mosque would be rebuilt along with the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
Speaking at the RSS's three-day outreach conclave in Delhi, Bhagwat Tuesday had said, "Hindu Rashtra doesn't mean there's no place for Muslims. The day it is said so, it won't be Hindutva any more. Hindutva talks about Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam."
In reply to a query Wednesday during the conclave, Bhagwat had said that the Ram Temple should be built in Ayodhya at the earliest.
Addressing a press conference here, Maharashtra Congress vice president and spokesperson Ratnakar Mahajan Thursday accused Bhagwat of raking up the Ram Temple issue because elections were round the corner.
"The issue of Ram Temple crops up when elections are round the corner. Bhagwat should clarify if the mosque which was demolished will be reconstructed alongside the Ram Temple," Mahajan said Thursday.
Mahajan said the Ram Janmabhoomi case in the Supreme Court was a title suit between two charitable public trusts and it had nothing to do with religion.
Mahajan also claimed that Bhagwat's comments during the three day outreach conclave were "lame" and "childish".
Mahajan alleged that most of the comments made were falsifying RSS' own history, adding that there was nothing substantial to speak about the performance of the BJP government at the Centre.
Mahajan also demanded to know under whose pressure Finance Commission chairman NK Singh denied the recent official press communique by the panel that raised concerns over the performance of Maharashtra on economic and social fronts.
He said never before had the Finance Commission made adverse comments publicly about a state before visiting it.
Fifteenth Finance Commission chairman N K Singh had Wednesday lauded Maharashtra's performance on economic and social indicators, denying a recent Press Information Bureau communique raising concerns on it.
"What changed in four days. Under whose pressure,the u-turn was done," Mahajan, who was earlier vice chairman of the state planning commission, questioned.
Mahajan Thursday alleged the Maharashtra government was not ready to face the truth that the state's financial situation is bad and that there had been a 11-13 per cent decline in revenue since 2013.
Speaking about the Congress' "Jan Sangharsh Yatra", he said that the second phase would begin from Faizpur in Jalgaon district from October 2.
It would cover Dhule, Nashik, Nandurbar and Ahmednagar districts of north Maharashtra and conclude on October 7. He informed that Faizpur was the venue of the 1936 Congress convention.
Mahajan further said that the yatra's first phase, which started on August 31 and covered western Maharashtra, had received a good response.
"We covered five to six constituencies in each of the districts where party leaders, through street corner meetings and rallies, discussed agrarian crisis, problems of irrigation, price rise and the state government's all round failure," Mahajan said.
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