VHP’s international secretary Pravin Togadia today questioned the attempts by the DF government in Maharashtra to ban his entry into the state or on his speeches and accused Congress president Sonia Gandhi of trying to avenge her party’s crunching defeat in Gujarat.
‘‘If the Maharashtra government imposes a ban on me, then it will go the Congress way as in Gujarat ...I have been travelling to all 14 Congress-ruled states in the past four years, but there been no riots after my speeches. There is not a single case lodged against me,’’ he said.
The state Home Department meanwhile said it had left the decision to ban Togadia’s public meetings to the local authorities in every district. ‘‘Under Section 144, a District Magistrate can exercise his powers to ban entry or public meetings of a person if it is creating a law and order problem,’’ said Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Asoke Basak.
Neither the Home Department nor the Director General of Police have issued any specific orders regarding the ban. ‘‘The department has conveyed to local police authorities in each district to take appropriate steps if communal harmony is being disturbed. Accordingly, they will decide,” Basak said.
Earlier, Togadia also gave clear signals that the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya would be the central focus of the three-day governing council meet of the VHP in Pune starting December 27. ‘‘The Ram Temple is our soul, our existence, our future. We will work out a strategy to crush jehadi terrorism forever and re-establish the Hindutva envisioned by Chhatrapati Shivaji,” he said.
Asked whether he supported Bal Thackeray’s statement on forming Hindu suicide squads, Togadia said: ‘‘Pravin Togadia will also give 100 per cent support to anything Balasaheb says. We will always stand by him irrespective of what he says.’’
The state BJP, meanwhile, threatened
to launch a stir if the government imposed a ban on Togadia.