Leave ‘love jihad’ to Bajrang Dal, UP BJP cadre told

AGRA: Former RSS spokesman and now senior BJP leader Shiv Prakash has asked partymen to refrain from speaking on or of 'love jihad' in public, saying organizations like the Bajrang Dal should deal with such issues.
This comes in the wake of reverses the BJP suffered in the recent UP bypolls where the Samajwadi Party won 8 of the 11 assembly seats and snapped up the Mainpuri Lok Sabha contest, too, even as all the talk of 'love jihad', led by rabble-rousing MP from Gorakhpur, Adityanath, seemed to leave the voters unimpressed.Perhaps sensing the general mood, home minister Rajnath Singh had also told reporters a week ago that he didn't know what 'love jihad' meant.
“BJP is a political party and then there are other sister organizations,” Prakash said here on Monday, addressing a meeting of district and city party workers. “We will have to see which organization should raise what topic. There are no two thoughts across the party and other affiliated organizations on the issue of ‘love jihad’, but, tell me, should it be an agenda of the political party or the Bajrang Dal’s? BJP workers should support them (sisters organizations) in police stations and courts, but 'love jihad' cannot be an agenda of BJP.”
Prakash, who has earlier worked as a kshetra pracharak for Western Uttar Pradesh, and was one of the two RSS leaders loaned to the BJP along with Ram Madhav, said the demarcation of issues is very important. “That is why home minister Rajnath Singh had to say that he did not know about 'love jihad'. Do you think he does not know about it? Was he not born in this family and aware of our ideology? But he is sitting on a constitutional post. His every word is heard across the world, he will have to tread carefully,” Prakash explained.
Female activists of India Against Love Jihad during a protest in Bhopal.
Conceding that the party did not get “results as expected in the bypolls”, Prakash said there could be so many issues for the party “to seriously ponder” if it wants to win the 2017 UP elections. Prakash was, however, quick to blame the media for connecting the UP bypoll results with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s waning influence.
Exhorting party workers to focus on local issues to win the 2017 UP assembly elections, Prakash said, “BJP workers are more focused on Ram Setu, but think less about the problems in their streets and wards. Vote is earned on this basis of basic issues which directly concern them.”