"What is love jihad? I have never heard of this sort of a thing. I have no idea," said union home minister Rajnath Singh impromptu changing into clothes of a shrewd politician and leaving it for the listeners to interpret the meaning – whether as the home minister he disapproves it or has he chosen to keep himself out of party politics?
Smiling, he deflected the issue repeatedly in the same vain when quizzed how he can be not aware of a catch phrase that is being actively used by his own party leaders like Yogi Adityanath and LK Bajpayee in UP poll campaign.
Lately, a cross section of BJP leaders from various states have made Love Jihad – claim that Muslims are marrying Hindu girls to convert them – to whip up passions.
At his keenly awaited first presser as the union home minister that coincided with the completion of 100 days of governance, Rajnath Singh chose to keep himself out of all other tricky questions.
On BJP MP from UP, Yogi Adityanath's "communal diatribe" that has drawn severe criticism from the poll watchdog, apt came Singh's reply, "The law will take its own course."
When asked about his relations with Prime Minister Modi and his position as a minister, Singh paused choosing his words carefully.
"Modiji is our Prime Minister; he is an able prime minister. I am a minister in his government. I am the home minister," he said, again after a pause, he added "My relations with him were cordial, are cordial and will remain cordial."
Describing his innings in home ministry to be compared as a test match instead of a one day match or a 20Twnety, Singh again forced the listeners to think if he was trying to convey that he was not positioning for any bigger post and was content with the post he has been given.
Turing into the garb of union home minister, Singh said that the ministry's main focus areas in priority are Left Wing Extremism (LWE), terrorism in J&K and insurgency in the North East.
"We are working on policy documents for all three areas that will be ready shortly," he said appealing the Maoist ideologues to give up the path of violence and come into the mainstream.
"We are ready for a dialogue if they give up violence. We believe that in a democracy dialogue is very important and should be tried," Singh said.
Singh sat to finalise the anti-Maoist doctrine immediately after the presser with his senior staff and also the NSA. Sources said the new doctrine would be called "Strategic and Tactical Paradigm to Combat Maoist Insurgency" and would be decisively potent than the doctrine under practice now.
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