After Congress MP Shashi Tharoor's controversial “Hindu Pakistan” remark, another Congress leader has created a fresh row by drawing more parallels between the BJP's Hindutva ideology and India's western neighbour.
Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh compared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to controversial Pakistani dictator Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq on the issue of fostering religious extremism.
In a scathing attack on Modi's government, Singh said the ruling party in India was promoting religious extremism in the country.
Arguing that extremism leads to terrorism, Singh said a similar kind of religious extremism is being promoted under Modi's governance in India as was done by Zia that led to a spurt of violence in Pakistan.
"Extremism leads to terrorism. Religious extremism as promoted by Zia in Pakistan led to a spurt in terrorism there. There is religious extremism being promoted by the government in India—the so-called Hindutva, this is a similar dangerous trend," Singh told the media.
Citing an example of governance during Zia's regime, Singh elaborated, "In Pakistan, Zia-ul-Haq started giving importance to bodies like Jamaat-E-Islami. Ever since he started supporting bodies like Taliban, Pakistan has more terror activities taking place than India. There are more bomb blasts in Pakistan; who are the people behind this? They are not foreigners but Pakistanis themselves, who's dying? Muslims themselves, no one else."
"What's happening in Afghanistan? The thing is it's a fight of ideologies, wherever such intolerance and such ideologies exist, there will be terrorism and such intolerant ideologies give birth to terrorism; religious intolerance gives way to terrorism," Singh said.
Zia was a Pakistani four-star general who served as the sixth president of Pakistan from 1978 until his death in 1988, after declaring martial law in 1977. He remains the country's longest-serving de facto head of state. Zia is widely perceived to have encouraged the growth of radical Islamist ideology in Pakistan.
Last month, Singh received flak after he commented that all terrorists who were Hindus and had been caught in the past were connected to the RSS in some way.
On Wednesday, Tharoor had said that if BJP wins the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it would create conditions leading to the formation of a “Hindu Pakistan”. Tharoor's statement drew flak from various political quarters, with the BJP demanding an apology from the Congress president Rahul Gandhi. Tharoor defended his "Hindu Pakistan" claim despite being reprimanded by his party.