The BJP scaled up its attack against the opposition INDIA bloc over Udhayanidhi Stalin’s controversial statement about Sanatan Dharma. The latest attack came from the party chief JP Nadda.

“The DMK is among the biggest and strongest constituents of the opposition’s Ghamandiya alliance. DMK chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin’s minister son Udhayanidhi Stalin proclaimed abolishing the Sanatan Dharma. He has equated abolition of Sanatan Dharma with eradicating vector-borne Malaria and Dengue,” JP Nadda said.

The BJP chief also called into question Rahul Gandhi’s Mohabbat ki Dukan, an attempt by the Congress leader to counter alleged hate in the country.

“I want to ask Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, what is his Mohabbat ki Dukan selling, is it selling the same anti-Sanatan Dharma venom spewed by the Tamil Nadu minister. The opposition’s Ghamandiya alliance needs to tell us whether this political strategy of abolishing Sanatan Dharma was churned out at the recent Mumbai brainstorming. Will the opposition’s alliance go into the next elections with the political agenda of abolishing Sanatan Dharma?” Mr Nadda said.

The BJP chief also flagged off the ‘Jan Ashirwad Yatra’ from Chitrakoot today. It will end on September 22 at the famous Ram Raja Temple in Niwari district of Bundelkhand.

“I appeal to people present here for the start of the Jan Ashirwad Yatra to take a vow of uprooting the opposition’s Ghamandiya alliance in the coming polls over this anti-Sanatan Dharma ideology,” Mr Nadda added.

The BJP leader urged people to make the BJP victorious in the assembly polls and also at the Centre in the next Lok Sabha elections to help the country become the third largest economy in the world.

Underlining the development works in the state, Mr Nadda said the state has been transformed.

“Be it roads construction, per capita income, opening new medical colleges or industrial and agricultural growth, Madhya Pradesh, under the BJP and Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s rule, has made rapid strides in all spheres of development. The state is number one in the country in various spheres, including cleanliness and sanitation, smart city development, water conservation and many major schemes of the Modi government, including the PM Swamitva Yojana, PM Awas Yojana and PM Matru Vandana Yojana,” Mr Nadda said.

In the next three days, four more Jan Ashirwad Yatras will be flagged off by Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari.

These five yatras will cover more than 10,500 kilometres, passing through 210 of Madhya Pradesh’s 230 Assembly constituencies before arriving in Bhopal.

The Karyakarta Mahakumbh on September 25 will be addressed by PM Narendra Modi.

Bhopal:

BJP national president JP Nadda will on Sunday flag off his party’s ‘Jan Ashirward Yatra’ in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh to seek the blessing of the people and reach out to them, from the holy city of Chitrakoot in Satna district.

Assembly elections in the BJP-governed MP are due by the year-end.

“Naddaji is expected to reach Chitrakoot around 10 am. He will participate in a function for the launch of the yatra around 11 am and flag it off at noon,” Satna BJP district president Satish Sharma told PTI over the phone from Chitrakoot.

“Four such yatras will be taken out from other places in the next week,” another party functionary said. During the course of the yatras, the BJP will reach out to the people through large public meetings and highlight the welfare schemes of the Centre and state and their achievements.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to address a meeting of BJP workers to mark the culmination of these five mass-contact programmes on September 25 in Bhopal, party leaders said.

September 25 is the birth anniversary of the late Deendayal Upadhyaya, a top leader of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh that later became the BJP.

The yatra from Chitrakoot will pass through the Vindhya region of Madhya Pradesh. In the 2018 assembly polls, the BJP had won 24 of the 30 seats in this region.

BJP leaders said that these five yatras will cover more than 10,500 km by crisscrossing 210 of MP’s 230 assembly constituencies before reaching Bhopal.

Though they will reach the state capital on September 21, the formal culmination of the yatras will take place on September 25 with a ‘Karyakarta Mahakumbh’, they said.

While Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was at the forefront of such programmes ahead of the last assembly elections, the BJP central leadership has decided to involve Union ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari for the yatras this time.

In the November 2018 MP assembly polls, the Congress won 114 of 230 seats while the BJP finished second with 109 seats.

The Congress formed a coalition government with the support of independents, BSP, and SP under Kamal Nath. However, it collapsed after 15 months when a string of Congress MLAs led by Jyotiraditya Scindia, now a Union minister, joined the BJP, paving the way for Chouhan’s return as CM. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)