Mumbai: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen party (AIMIM) leader Asaduddin Owaisi made a direct attack on the RSS and said that he would not chant 'Bharat mata ki jai,' while addressing a public rally in Latur on Sunday.
"I won't chant that slogan. What are you going to do about it, (Mohan) Bhagwat sahab," Owaisi said, at a public rally in Udgir tehsil of Latur district.
His comments came against the backdrop of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's suggestion that the new generation needs to be taught to chant slogans hailing ‘mother India’.
"I won't utter that (slogan) even if you put a knife to my throat," Owaisi said, amid loud applause by the crowd.
"Nowhere in the Constitution it says that one should say: Bharat mata ki jai," the AIMIM leader had proclaimed.
On March 3, Bhagwat had said the new generation in the country should be taught to chant slogans hailing mother India. He was referring to the row over alleged anti-India sloganeering on the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus.
"Now the time has come when we have to tell the new generation to chant 'Bharat mata ki jai' (hail mother India). It should be real, spontaneous and part of all-round development of the youth," the RSS chief had said.
Sneering at the RSS chief for his remarks, Owaisi said he will "continue to support" the family of Ishrat Jahan. Ishrat Jahan was an alleged LeT operative who was killed in an encounter by the Gujarat police in 2004. (PTI)
