Congress is to hold a nationwide protest on Monday against the shooting an effigy of Mahatma Gandhi at Aligarh on January 30, Organisational General Secretary KC Venugopal said here on Sunday.
The party will hold a rally against the deeds of the Hindu Mahasabha at 1000 hrs on February 4 in all state headquarters with placards, in the places associated with the life of Mahatma Gandhi or near statues of Mahatma and will also highlight his messages.
On January 30, when the nation commemorated the 71st anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination, the members of Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha in Uttar Pradesh used a pistol to shoot at an effigy of Gandhiji, distributed sweets and garlanded the statue of Nathuram Godse, Gandhiji’s assassin.
Godse was a member of the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha. The members also burnt the effigy of Mahatma Gandhi and shouted pro-Godse slogans like ‘Mahatma Godse Zindabad’, Mr Venugopal said.
”These provocative and reprehensible actions happening in BJP-ruled states, take place with the candid and clandestine support given by the ruling party and the same reveals the deep hatred still carried by the right wing groups against the father of the Nation and his ideas of Secularism, Ahimsa and Brotherhood,” he alleged.
The incident happened at Aligarh on January 30, when Hindu Mahasabha National Secretary Pooja Shakun Pandey shot at an effigy of Mahatma Gandhi, to celebrate his death and the ‘martyrdom’ of Nathuram Godse, the man who killed Gandhi on January 30, 1948.
A case was registered against 13 people, including a woman leader of Hindu Mahasabha, while police has arrested three people in this connection, so far.(UNI)