Fast on the heels of the international outrage following the remarks of former BJP spokesperson, Nupur Sharma on the Prophet Mohammed (Naveen Kumar Jindal was also suspended from the party), the BJP has now collated its own list of ‘Hate Speech Offenders.’ This was reported in the Hindi daily, Dainik Bhaskar on June 7. As per the report, the party used the help of ‘IT experts’ to go through the statements of leaders over the last eight years, since September, 2014. The party found that 5,200 statements were unnecessary while 2,700 statements were worded in an insensitive manner. As such, the BJP listed 38 of its leaders who hurt religious sentiments. Out of these, 27 elected leaders have received instructions to refrain from making such statements and seek the permission of the party first.
While the names of all 38 are not yet available, media reports have suggested the following have made it to the selection! CJP has collated the hate track record and will keep updating this list as more information trickles in
Some of the Who’s Who in the BJP List and what they said
1. Anant Kumar Hegde
In 2017, then Minister of State for Employment and Skill Development Anantkumar Hegde said that secular people do not have an “identity of their parental blood”. Speaking at an event in Yelburga taluk of Karnataka’s Koppal district he said, “Those claiming to be secular and progressive do not have an identity of their parents and their blood. I will be happy if someone identifies as Muslim, Christian, Brahmin, Lingayat or Hindu. But trouble will arise if they say they are secular.” He went on to say that the BJP is here to change the Constitution that is based on the thoughts of BR Ambedkar.
2. Giriraj Singh
On April 24, 2019, Singh, while campaigning as a BJP candidate from Begusarai in Bihar for the 2019 general election. At a gathering at GD College, he made a controversial comment about chanting Vande Mataram and burial space for Muslims. Translated from Hindi he said, “Those who cannot say Vande Mataram or cannot respect the motherland, the nation will never forgive them. My ancestors died at the Simaria Ghat and did not need a grave but you need three handspans of space.” The Election Commission of India (ECI) took grave note on May 12, condemned these statements that “contaminate the electoral process” and warned him to be careful of his public utterances. Before this as well, he made several controversial statements about Muslims, former INC president Sonia Gandhi and asked non-supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to go to Pakistan. He had even to surrender before the police before he was promptly granted bail.. Then, in Feb 2020 he had said that we are ‘Paying Price For Not Sending Muslims To Pak In 1947’ Giriraj Singh was a member of the Union Cabinet, when he made this communal speech, saying that all Muslims should have been sent to Pakistan during the 1947 partition. In the same month, the union minister also said that the “Islamic seminary Deoband in Uttar Pradesh is an “aatankvaad ki Gangotri (source of terrorists)”.
3. Shobha Karandlaje
On May 9, 2022 SabrangIndia reported how Union Minister of state Shobha Karandlaje claimed a conspiracy behind the murder of a Bajrang Dal member HarshaJigade. She demanded a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Similarly, in 2017, Karnataka Police had filed a case against Shobha Karandlaje after she tweeted that “jihadis” were involved she said was attempted “rape and murder” of a 14-year-old girl in Uttara Kannada’s Honnavar town. The girl had later revealed that fearing a stalker, she had inflicted the wounds on herself to end her life. Karandlaje was reportedly booked under Section 153 (promoting enmity between groups) of the Indian Penal Code.
4. Tathagat Roy
the infamous former Governor of Tripura. He made several inciteful statements including this: In 2015, he said, “The war against intolerance will be ‘balanced’ only when Muslims have pork in the open.” In February 2019, he even tweeted a retired colonel of the Indian army exhorting a “boycott” of everything Kashmiri.
An appeal from a retired colonel of the Indian Army: Don’t visit Kashmir,don’t go to Amarnath for the next 2 years. Don’t buy articles from Kashmir emporia or Kashmiri tradesman who come every winter. Boycott everything Kashmiri.
I am inclined to agree— Tathagata Roy (@tathagata2) February 19, 2019
Bhakts have called him a ‘rockstar governor’ for this hate.
Rockstar Governor! https://t.co/huPmnJysdK
— शुभ्रास्था (Shubhrastha) (@Shubhrastha) February 19, 2019
Tathagata Roy was president of the BJP in West Bengal between 2002 and 2006, and was appointed the governor of Tripura in 2015, and then of Meghalaya in 2018. He was also briefly the governor of Arunachal Pradesh when Pema Khandu was sworn in as the tenth chief minister after a period of intense instability, which saw both the late Kalikho Pul and Nabam Tuki being ousted.
5. Vinay Katiyar
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader MP Vinay Katiyar who had claimed in 2017 that “Delhi’s Jama Masjid was known as Jamuna Devi Temple before the capital was sacked by Mughals.” Katiyar is a serial offender, central to the communal mobilisation around the Ramnjanmabhoomi movement that resulted in the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
6. Mahesh Sharma
In an interview to a national television channel in 2015, Sharma allegedly said, “I respect Bible and Quran but they are not central to the soul of India in the way Gita and Ramayana are.”The Congress in Goa filed a police complaint against him for allegedly delivering a hate speech against minority religions. Later, Sharma said he had been misquoted.
7. Raja Singh
Around February 15, 2022, a video of Bharatiya Janata Party’s T. Raja Singh, an MLA from the Goshamahal Assembly of Hyderabad, Telangana, threatening Uttar Pradesh’s Hindu voters to re-elect the Adityanath-led BJP government circulated widely on social media. He was heard and seen warning the voters that if they do not vote for a “Yogi-government” then their houses will be identified and destroyed with bulldozers and JCBs.
8. Sakshi Maharaj
On January, 2017 he was booked for alleged hate speech in Uttar Pradesh, after he hinted that Muslims were responsible for India’s growing population. He said, “Those with four wives and 40 children are responsible for the population increase in the country. Hindus are not responsible for the increase in population,” adding, “Strict laws are required in this country if we really want to curb population. Parties need to rise above politics and take decision for the sake of the country”. This came just after the Supreme Court and Election Commission established guidelines for the Model Code of Conduct, including barring the use of religion, language and caste to seek votes.
9. Sangeet Som
BJP MLA Sangeet Som in 2017 stated that Taj Mahal was a “blot on India” because it was built by a Mughal emperor He is also the accused in the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. He was accused of uploading an inflammatory video on Facebook that had allegedly triggered communal violence in the district. Also sttating that the “Taj was built by traitors” and listing Akbar, Babur and Mughals as traitors he said they would be removed from the pages of history. Besides he has been indicted by a judicial commission. ‘Speeches, video by Sangeet Som, Rana fuelled Muzaffarnagar riots’: The Justice Vishnu Sahai Commission has indicted former BSP MP Kadir Rana and BJP MLA Sangeet Som for making provocative speeches and circulating a fake video clip respectively that led to the communal riots in Muzaffarnagar.
10. Pratap Simha
In 2021, BJP MP Pratap Simha made insensitive statements about the names of Congress leader and Dalit Priyank Kharge’s children. Activists gathering outside his house demanded an apology to Kharge and the Dalits of the state.
11. Vikram Singh Saini
Vikram Saini has been known to make inflammatory statements. In 2019, he threatened to “bomb” those who felt unsafe in India. A year before that, he had said, “Our country is called Hindustan, which means a nation for Hindus”. He has also threatened to “break the limbs of those who kill cows”.
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