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‘Opening liquor shops & keeping temples shut is wrong’ — BJP slams ‘anti-Hindu’ Uddhav govt

Since 15 August, Maharashtra opened shops, malls and restaurants but has not yet fixed a date for the reopening of temples, which have been shut since April 2021.

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Mumbai: Maharashtra’s move to allow restaurants, bars and malls to re-open this week after months-long closure because of Covid has led to strong criticism from the opposition BJP. The party is upset that temples are not yet allowed to reopen and has labelled the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government “anti-Hindu”.

Last week, BJP leaders in Nashik held a protest outside the district’s famous Trimbakeshwar shrine. In Mumbai, BJP MLA Ram Kadam had announced he would visit the Siddhivinayak Temple in the city Tuesday, but later said he was stopped by the Mumbai Police.

Former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis targeted the Uddhav Thackeray-led government, saying the temples’ continued closure was a sign that the government did not care about the poor, many of whom worked in temples or were dependent on the economy created around these temples.

“The poorest of the poor, such as the one who makes garlands, sells prasad, vermillion, the temple priest, the cleaners, these are all poor people who are dependent on temples. It has been two years, what have you thought about them? Has the government given them a single penny? The government’s policy of opening liquor shops and keeping temples shut is wrong,” Fadnavis said at a press conference Tuesday.

Shops, malls and restaurants across the state got permission to stay open till 10 pm every day from 15 August after remaining closed for weeks because of the second wave of the Covid pandemic. They had been allowed to function with restricted timings but it was different for different districts of Maharashtra depending on the positivity rate and oxygen bed occupancy scenario. However, all establishments were shut in April when the lockdown for the second wave was declared.

Maharashtra’s MVA government, comprising the Shiv Sena, Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), is yet to fix a date for the reopening of religious places, which have remained shut since April this year. The government had opened religious places between the two Covid waves from November 2020 to April 2021.

Maharashtra has so far recorded 64.01 lakh Covid cases, of which 61,306 are currently active.

This is not the first time that the BJP has attacked the MVA government on the shutdown of temples. After the lockdown during the first wave of the pandemic, too, the BJP had staged agitations across Maharashtra demanding that the state government open temples to the public.

The issue had sparked a letter war between Governor B.S. Koshyari and Chief Minister Thackeray with the former urged the chief minister to open the shrines and asking him if he had turned “secular.”


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‘Uddhav’s new Maharashtra a challenge to the Hindu religion’

BJP MLA Kadam in a video statement released Tuesday slammed the MVA government as one that “stifles the voice of the Hindus”.

Kadam, who has alleged that he was stopped from going to the Siddhivinayak temple, said, “If you are going to stifle the voice of the Hindu, Maharashtra and the country’s Hindu population will not take it. Even before this, we have seen how this government is against Hindus in the Palghar lynching incident and in the future, it will have to pay the penalty for this.”

In April 2020, three people, including two sadhus, were lynched in Maharashtra’s Palghar district after rumours circulated that they were child kidnappers. The BJP has demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry on the issue.

The BJP also targeted the MVA government after the Bombay High Court allowed a procession for Moharram though the state government guidelines had disallowed a procession.

The BJP’s Mumbai unit tweeted from its official handle on Wednesday, “Look at the secularism of the Thackeray government. Only 200 warkaris will be allowed on Ashadi Wari (considered one of Maharashtra’s holiest pilgrimages) and a thousand people will carry coffins in the procession of Moharram.”

The state government had disallowed the annual pilgrimage by foot to the Vitthal Rukmini temple in Pandharpur in July as well and had allowed members from the Warkari sect to travel by bus in limited numbers, BJP leaders pointed out.

On Wednesday, BJP MLA Nitesh Rane, son of Union Minister Narayan Rane, and one of the Shiv Sena’s staunchest critics, tweeted, “Temples will remain shut in Maharashtra because there is a government in the state that is a threat to the Hindu religion. If you are a Hindu, you should live with fear. This is Uddhav’s new Maharashtra.”

Shiv Sena spokesperson Manisha Kayande told ThePrint the BJP “did not have the right” to demand opening temples amid a pandemic, pointing out that the party is holding rallies across the country in violation of social distancing norms.

“What is the need to have Jan Aashirwad yaatras now? People have already given them their blessings twice (in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha poll). Now is the time to perform. The rallies are more like ‘Corona badhao’ rallies,” Kayande said.

(Edited by Paramita Ghosh)


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