New Delhi: In a statement that may spark fresh controversy, VHP leader Praveen Togadia on Wednesday said that a law for having only two children should be framed.

“Population of minorities is continuously increasing, but when the issue is raised, a controversy is started. Therefore a law for having only two children should be framed,” Togadia said, according to the report by Times of India.

He claimed that the number of Hindus would increase and one day tricolour would fly high in Kandahar, Lahore and Dhaka. Togadia said that when Hindus talk about their problems, the so called leaders become secular. Hindus had faced conversion and nobody else could understand the pain, he said.

The VHP leader accused Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav of indulging in minority appeasement. He said that Hindus would have to become alert towards their rights and insults at them. Togadia said that VHP would celebrate only when Ram Temple was constructed in Ayodhya as per the wishes of the Hindus.

Provocative

Targeting Muslims he said, “The Muslims keep four wives and 10 children. This was how India became a poor country. Yet, the government seems to be least interested in preventing them from doing so.” Supporting Bharatiya Janata Party MP Sakshi Maharaj for his remark that each Hindu family should have four children, Togadia said, “We are forced to shut our mouth when we say that the Hindu families should have more children. Unfortunately, those who speak in support of four children in each Hindu family are receiving notices from the party. I dare those who are opposed to that idea to bring a law against having more than two children, and make it mandatory for Muslim families to follow that law.”

He further said, “There was a time when there were Hindus all over the world. According to our estimate, the Hindu population should have been 700 crore today. But there are only 100 crore now. There would be only 10 crore Hindus after 100 years, if we don’t learn from our mistakes. The aim of VHP is to protect our offspring and make them prosperous.”

According to the reports in India Today, he further said that “like good human beings”, each Hindu family must donate food grain to a poor Hindu every day. Moreover, Hindu families must feed a cow every day, he added. As part of the “largehearted Hindu altruism”, it is also important to pay the education fee of a poor Hindu student every month, Togadia said. A Hindu doctor must treat a poor Hindu free-of-cost every day”, 

Referring to the need for generating employment, the VHP president said every Hindu businessman must provide employment to unemployed Hindu youths. These Hindu youths must also be trained for upgrading their skills, he said. Children of Hindu families must be taught about religious heritage and each Hindu family must visit a temple every day, Togadia stressed.

For ‘ghar wapsi’

The VHP on Wednesday said nothing will deter it from going ahead with its core agenda of ‘ghar wapsi’, and that it will hold a major convention in Delhi on March 1 to highlight its demands. “The VHP will organise a major ‘dharam sabha’ at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on March 1. It will be addressed by top leaders like Ashok Singhal and Praveen Togadia,” VHP joint general secretary Surendra Jain said. “We will continue to hold ‘dharam sabhas’ across the country to highlight our core issues, like ‘ghar wapsi’, cow protection, uniform civil code and Ram Mandir construction,” Jain said.

Earlier, BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj had stirred a controversy by asking Hindu women to produce at least four children.

The BJP had issued a show-cause notice to Sakshi Maharaj and has asked the MP to respond within 10 days why he made the controversial statements despite instructions from the party not to do so. The BJP distanced itself from the comment, and party president Amit Shah said such comments were “damaging”.

An official statement from the party’s national secretary Shrikant Sharma requested party workers to “concentrate all their efforts in the promotion of all the work being done for public benefit and should distance themselves from unnecessary opinionated statements”.

The MP had earlier been involved in a controversy over his comment calling Mahatma Gandhi’s killer Nathuram Godse a “patriot”.

During the winter session of Parliament, the Prime Minister, at a meeting of the parliamentary party of the BJP, asked MPs not to make controversial statements.

This came following a statement by Union minister of state Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti using abusive language during a public meeting.

(With Times of India, India Today)