By IANS,
New Delhi: In a veiled attack on Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for insisting on a secular prime minister, the RSS has sought to know why there was such aversion for Hindutva in India.
“What is the meaning of saying (that the) prime minister should be secular?” the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s mouthpiece Panchajanya asked in an editorial.
“Our constitution makers did not give any such ‘distinguished identity’ to the prime minister’s post, perhaps because they believed that India has always stood for eternal values, religion and culture, and the basis of our society and national life is the feeling of all-inclusiveness and mutual existence,” it said.
The editorial said a prime minister’s responsibility as head of the central government was to protect the democratic values and the rights of all without any discrimination.
Comments about the need for a secular prime minister were being made “for vote-bank politics and minority appeasement”, it said.
The RSS mouthpiece did not name Nitish Kumar or his party, the Janata Dal-United.
Nitish Kumar has said that the National Democratic Alliance’s prime ministerial candidate should be secular and liberal.
With elections nearly two years away, the NDA or the BJP has yet to name a prime ministerial candidate.