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Tarun Vijay's racist remark: Are south Indians not part of country? Do you want to divide India? Kharge asks in LS

HM Rajnath Singh responded saying 'India is a secular country.'

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L to R: Former BJP MP Tarun Vijay and Congress leader Mallikarjuna Kharge.
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As Opposition leaders protested in the Lok Sabha on Monday about former BJP MP Tarun Vijay's racist comments against south Indians, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh tried to douse the fire by refuting any discrimination.

As soon as the House took up Question Hour, Congress members raised the issue and demanded an apology.

"Are people living in South India part of the country or not? This shows your mentality, do you want to divide India?" asked Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge in the Lok Sabha.

"We will have to agitate not only inside, but outside too," said Kharge questioning what action the government was going to take.

In response, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said, "India is a secular country. Discrimination on basis of caste, creed, colour cannot be allowed here."

Earlier last week, Tarun Vijay had sparked a controversy saying, "If we were racist, how do we live with south Indians." He made the remarks during an interview with the Al Jazeera English news channel.

The former MP was replying to one of the panellists - photographer Mahesh Shantaram - who questioned how politicians were saying that there is no racism in India. "Why are people abroad.. those who visit our nation, then feeling that Indians are racists. Are they all wrong?" 

To this Tarun Vijay responded, "If we all were racists, why would have the entire South...you know Tamil..you know Kerala, you know Karnataka. Andhra... Why do we live with them. We have black people around us." He also questioned Shantaram's nationality, which prompted the photographer to display his Indian passport. 

After receiving backlash, Tarun Vijay attempted some damage control on Twitter. He clarified, "I said we worship Krishna, which literally means black, we were the first to oppose any racism and were in fact victims of racist British."

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