Hinduism & Hindutva different: Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah

Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah asserted today that Hinduism and Hindutva were different.

Addressing the 139th Congress Foundation Day celebration at the Bharat Jodo auditorium in Bengaluru, the chief minister said, “Don’t we worship Ram? Haven’t we built Ram mandirs in our villages? Don’t we sing Ram bhajans?

"But the Hindutva propagated by the BJP is fake."

"Not a single person from the BJP, Jan Sangh, RSS and Sangh Parivar had fought against the British," he added. "The RSS took birth during the British regime. But they didn’t participate in the fight against the British for a single day. The freedom struggle was done by the Congress party in the country.

"The falsehood of the BJP should be understood and it should be conveyed to the people," Siddaramaiah continued.

"After Independence," he said, "the Congress achieved progress in all sectors in India. All dams built in India were constructed during late prime minister Nehru and Congress governments. BJP has not build even one single dam so far. They tell lies as if they are the truth, they are masters in it."

In a post on X repeating key points from his speech, the chief minister said, 'The Congress is an ideology and a movement born to fight for the progress of the people.'

The senior Congress leader said, 'There were thousands of problems all over India at the threshold of independence. Congress came as a solution to all those problems. There are still many problems. Congress has to come back to power to solve these problems.'

He mentioned, for instance, that it was Mahatma Gandhi who pioneered the path to Independence through satyagraha, and reminded his followers that Nehru as well as Indira and Rajiv Gandhi were the builders of a modern India through their championship of the development of science and technology in the country.

"The late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi laid the foundation for the expansion of the internet throughout the country," Siddaramaiah had said in his speech today, and asked, "What else has the BJP done apart from giving up?"

He had asserted that today social justice prevails in the country only because of the Congress party. "Congress will again achieve power through struggle," he then promised, as he announced that "after the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi is getting ready for another round of padayatra", in reference to the recently declared Nyay Yatra.

With inputs from IANS