I Won’t Say ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, What are You Going To Do? Owaisi Challenged Bhagwat

Mumbai: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi has said he will not chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, even if a knife is put to his throat.

“I don’t chant that slogan. What are you going to do, Bhagwat sahab,” Owaisi challenged, at a public rally in Udgir tehsil of Latur district on Sunday.

“Nowhere in the Constitution it says that one should say: Bharat Mata ki Jai”, “Whom is he(Bhagwat) trying to frighten? He can’t force his ideology on others,” Owaisi said.

On March 3, Bhagwat had said, “Now the time has come when we have to tell the new generation to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ (hail mother India). It should be real, spontaneous and part of all-round development of the youth,”. The comments came against the backdrop of the row over alleged anti-India sloganeering on the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus.

Asked by reporters to comment on the condemnation of his statement, Owaisi said he stood by it, asserting there is no violation of any law or Constitution in what he said.