Nationalist Congress Party demands ban on Sanatan Sanstha

While Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) state unit spokesperson Nawab Malik demanded a ban on Sanatan Sanstha over its alleged links with "bomb plot" and murder of rationalists, NCP President Sharad Pawar avoided naming Sanatan Sanstha and said, "if any organisation is behaving like this, strong action needs to be taken against it."

"Whether it is Narendra Dabholkar or Gauri Lankesh or M M Kalburgi their murders are nothing but an attack on secularism. One should look at what kind of ideology these people represent who have been arrested in these cases. This ideology is not thinking for larger public interest but spreading communalism," he said.

Pawar even trashed the right-wing group's demand to drop the word "secular" from the Constitution. "It does not matter who says what. Only Parliament has the right to change a decision made in Parliament. And I don't think no party in the Parliament thinks so (about removing the word secular from the Constitution)," he said.

Reiterating his demand for the ban, Nawab Malik said that Sanatan Sanstha has been misguiding youth to the wrong path.