By IANS
New Delhi/Chennai/Bangalore : Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi Wednesday demanded speeding up of work on the Sethusamudram shipping canal project even as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) urged the government to scrap it, saying it was hurting Hindu religious sentiments.
With the issue generating more heat and leaving two people dead in Karnataka, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) asked Karunanidhi to stop his tirade against Hindu god Ram and asked if he would dare to make similar derogatory remarks against other religions.
In Bangalore, police detained about 10 people and stepped up security for Karunanidhi’s elder daughter Selvi in the wake of Tuesday’s bomb attack at her residence in the wake of the chief minister’s remarks lampooning Ram.
A group of 15-20 people pelted Selvi’s house in the posh J.P. Nagar area of the city with stones and glass bottles, breaking windowpanes and ornamental bulbs on the compound wall Tuesday night.
Selvi and her husband Murasoli Selvan were away in Chennai then. A watchman who was slightly injured told the police that the attackers, in their 20s, shouted anti-Karunanidhi slogans and left behind pamphlets attacking him.
In an apparently related incident, a Tamil Nadu State Road Transport bus was set on fire on the outskirts of Bangalore Tuesday, killing two passengers.
The bus was stopped near Bommanahalli on the road to Hosur in Tamil Nadu around 9.30 p.m. and was set on fire after all the passengers were asked to get off, the driver and conductor of the bus told the police.
After the fire was doused, police found two bodies burnt beyond recognition.
A defiant Karunanidhi, however, stuck to dismissing epic hero Ram as a mythical character.
An official release from the chief minister’s office said Wednesday that there was “no historical evidence” to show that Ram lived or that he was an “engineering expert” to build a bridge across the narrow sea dividing India and Sri Lanka. “What is wrong in what I had said?” he asked in the statement.
The chief minister also told the media here that he had convened an all-party meeting Sep 24 to ensure that the Sethusamudram project is not stopped.
Speaking to television channels about the attack on Selvi’s house, Karunanidhi said: “The culprits have shown that this is the culture of the Ram Bhaktas (Ram devotees).
“I treat these things like a speck of dust. I welcome such opposition,” he added.
Karunanidhi’s aggression is linked to a row sparked by the Indian government decision to withdraw an affidavit from the Supreme Court that had challenged the existence of Hindu god Ram – in relation to the Sethusamudram project.
Hindu groups say the project would end up destroying Ram Sethu, a so-called bridge that a monkey army is said to have built to enable Lord Ram to cross the sea to move into Lanka, or present day Sri Lanka.
In Tirunelveli, BJP general secretary Ravishankar Prasad took on Karunanidhi.
“Why this arrogance? Karunanidhi is asking for Lord Ram’s engineering certificate. Can he ask the same question about other religions?” Prasad said, addressing the BJP state council in Tirunelveli, 900 km south of Chennai.
Prasad also asked his party to be ready for early parliamentary elections, saying the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, of which the DMK is a key member, would fall any day.
“Ram Sethu is part of India’s cultural heritage and the region had rich thorium deposits. Any move to destroy the Ram Sethu would be opposed by the BJP,” he said.
Meanwhile, a division bench of the Madras High Court has asked the High Court Registry to number a quo warranto petition by Uma Bharati’s Bharatiya Jana Shakti Party seeking removal of Karunanidhi as chief minister for his remarks against Lord Ram. The petition has been posted for hearing Thursday.
In New Delhi, the VHP urged the government to abandon the Sethusamudram project saying it will only damage the Ram Sethu bridge.
After a two-day meeting, VHP president Ashok Singhal told newsmen that United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi inaugurated the project in Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu in July at the instance of the US, “which is eyeing our thorium reserves there (in the area where the canal is being dug).”
He also appreciated the “yeoman service done by (Janata Party president) Subramniam Swamy to the cause of Hinduism” for taking the canal project to the Supreme Court.
Singhal was referring to Swamy’s petition in the Supreme Court that resulted in the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) challenging in its affidavit the existence of Hindu god Ram.
Singhal denied VHP’s hand in the attack at the Bangalore residence of Selvi. The VHP “condemns such violence”, he said.