A day after NCP chief Ajit Pawar termed his remarks “not acceptable to the party”, his party MLA Sangram Jagtap Sunday defended his statement urging Hindus to make Diwali purchases exclusively from Hindu shopkeepers, claiming that it was in response to similar statements made by Muslim leaders in the past.
Addressing a rally in Ahilyanagar, Jagtap said, “There is a reason behind the statement I made two days back. I spoke about from whom purchases should be made. We did not start it. They have started it. For the last few years, they have been distributing leaflets urging Muslims to make purchases only from Muslims during Eid.”
The Ahilyanagar MLA said these kinds of appeals have been made in the past few years.
“We ignored it, we avoided it because we did not want to create bitterness in the society,” he said.
Jagtap claimed that he had met some Muslim leaders and told them to stop circulating such leaflets. “We told them that it creates bitterness…It still did not stop despite repeatedly urging them And that is why I made the appeal. We did not start it, they started it,” he said.
On Saturday, Ajit Pawar said statements made by Jagtap were against the ideology of the party and were not acceptable to the party. Pawar said they will issue him a show-cause notice.
When reporters asked him about the notice from the NCP, Jagtap said he will discuss the issue with his party chief.
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The event was also attended by BJP leader Gopichand Padalkar, who has often made critical remarks against the Pawar family, including Ajit Pawar.
The NCP MLA also protested “defamatory leaflets” found thrown in the city against Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.
“It was thrown by a ‘jihadi’ who has been arrested by the police. And therefore Shiv Shakti-Bhim Shakti morcha was oragnised today,” he said.
Jagtap said he was not worried if couple of his people even went to jail. ”We want to keep our country and religion safe. If some of our people go to jail, we won’t object….but we shall give them a befitting reply,” he said.
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Targeting AIMIM national president Asauddin Owaisi and Maharashtra chief Imtiaz Jaleel, Jagtap said, “In Ahilyanagar whenever there is some Hindu festival, some people make deliberate attempts to disturb them. During Navratri, they put up some boards. We have no objection to the boards if it is related to their god… But some messages at the bottom of the boards… were an attempt to create bitterness in the society. We used democratic means and told them to remove the board. But they did not remove the board but covered up the objectionable boards.”
Alleging “demographic jihad”, Jagtap cited the defeat of Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Choudhary from Bahrampur Lok Sabha of West Bengal.
“Choudhary was a Congress leader. He followed the Congress ideology. He took everyone along. He worked hard for his constituency for 25 years…Yet, he was defeated by Irfan Pathan who was brought from outside… When it came to religion, they did not give preference to the work of a leader, but they preferred their own man, from their religion. This is what I call ‘demographic jihad’ Similar thing happened in Malegaon which was a traditional Congress bastion. But now AIMIM is ruling it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Baramati MP Supriya Sule of NCP (SP) said the notice issued by Ajit Pawar has no meaning.
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“Sangram Jagtap should be sacked from the party. If any individual is trying to create bitterness in the society, is working against the interest of Maharashtra and is working against the Constitution, then there should be strong action against him. Sangram Jagtap’s statements are against the Constitution, against Maharashtra and against the country.”
