A complaint was filed in a Varanasi court on Monday against the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, for allegedly describing Lord Rama as mythological and imaginary in a university in the US. The Congress party has also been made a party in this complaint. An advocate said that the court has fixed May 19 as the date for hearing in this case. Advocate Harishankar Pandey, who filed the complaint, claimed that former Congress President Gandhi had made a controversial statement about Lord Rama on April 21 at Brown University in Boston, USA, about which he came to know from the local newspaper.
“Sanatanis’ feelings hurt by Rahul’s statement
Pandey claimed that Gandhi had described Lord Rama as mythological and the stories of that era as imaginary in his statement. He said that a complaint has been filed in the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Neeraj Kumar Tripathi of the MP-MLA court here on Monday regarding this matter. Pandey said that Gandhi has given this alleged controversial statement from a public platform, due to which “the feelings of Sanatanis have been hurt.” He said that in the Indian judicial code such statements are classified as “hate speech”. Pandey said that he has asked the court to summon Rahul Gandhi and take strict punitive action.
The case will be heard on May 19.
He said that the court has accepted this complaint and fixed May 19 as the date for hearing. During a discussion at a university in the US last month, Gandhi had said, “All the great political thinkers, social reformers, Guru Nanak, Basava in Karnataka, Narayana Guru in Kerala, Phule, Gandhi, Ambedkar, you see them in one stream. None of them are fanatics. None of these people were saying – ‘We want to kill people, we want to isolate people, we want to crush people, things should be done in a particular way’. All these people, whose voice are they? Our Constitution essentially says the same thing, which takes everyone along – truth and non-violence.
Rahul Gandhi insulted the Hindu community on foreign soil
The Congress leader said, “This is the basis of Indian tradition and Indian history for me. I do not know a single person in India, whom we consider great, who was not of this type. All our mythological personalities, Lord Rama were of that type, where he was forgiving, kind. So, what the BJP says, I do not consider it a Hindu idea at all. I consider Hindu thought to be much more pluralistic, much more welcoming, much more affectionate, much more tolerant and open.’ Later, VHP leaders claimed, ‘During his interview at Brown University in the US, Gandhi mythologised many topics of Indian history and even called Lord Ram a mythological character. By doing so, he has insulted the Hindu community and the Hindu faith on foreign soil.