Salman Khurshid’s Assault On Hindutva & Akhilesh Yadav’s Jinnah Card: Is This New Secularism?

It almost seems an intense fight for Muslim votes has broken out among secular parties in Uttar Pradesh. First, the Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav praised MA Jinnah. Then there was Salman Khurshid trashing Hindutva, equating it with ISIS and Boko Haram in his book Sunrise Over Ayodhya. His party colleague Rashid Alvi from UP joined him with a word of caution about Ram Bhakts. Giving a boost to Khurshid and Alvi, Rahul Gandhi also sought to drive a wedge between Hinduism and Hindutva– describing it as a hateful ideology of RSS/BJP. The only sane voice was from CWC member Ghulam Nabi Azad. In this backdrop it is interesting to know that the Oxford educated former Union Minister Salman Khurshid was actually hoping to score a legal point through his book. He says he had been studying through the 1,500-page order of 2019 Supreme Court order. He admits no one had hoped there would be a resolution to the vexed issue of Ram Janmabhoomi temple but somehow the Apex Court had found one. But no one would have expected a book from the Congress stable – that was bound to be a political disaster. Earlier, Congress president Sonia Gandhi was upset with Khurshid for his book – The Other Side of the Mountain wherein he had suggested that Pranab Mukherjee should have been made the PM.