Union Minister Meenakshi Lekhi hits out at audience for not chanting 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai'
Kozhikode (Kerala), Feb 3: Union Minister Meenakshi Lekhi on Saturday lashed out at a section of the audience at a youth conclave here for not chanting the "Bharat Mata Ki Jai" slogan despite she repeatedly asked them to do so.
A visibly irked Lekhi asked them whether Bharat was not their mother and even suggested a woman, who was reluctant to raise the slogan, to leave the venue.
The conclave was organised by certain right-wing outfits.
Concluding her speech, the senior BJP leader chanted "Bharat Mata Ki Jai" and asked the audience to repeat it.
As the response from the audience was not as expected, she asked whether Bharat was not their home.
"Is Bharat only my mother or your mother as well? Tell me...Tell me...Is there any doubt? No doubt?...Enthusiasm needs to be expressed," the Union Minister of State for External Affairs & Culture said.
She repeated the slogan and said that the response from the left side audience was still poor.
Pointing at a woman in the audience, Lekhi said, "the lady in yellow (dress) can stand up. Don't look on to the sides. This is how I am going to speak to you. I am going to ask you a straight question. Bharat is not your mother?... Why this attitude?"
Lekhi again chanted Bharat Mata Ki Jai. The woman was still standing idle, doing nothing.
"I think you should leave the house," she said.
The minister also made it clear that someone who does not feel proud of the nation and who finds it embarrassing to speak about India, need not be part of the youth conclave.
Union Minister and BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi loses her cool at Kerala audience for not responding loud enough to her "Bharat Mata ki Jai" chants in Kozhikode. She later asks the lady in the audience to leave the house. What arrogance! pic.twitter.com/xheHDEtwRX
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Chadha, others wouldn't have left AAP had it followed 'right' path: Anna Hazare
Mumbai (PTI): Social activist Anna Hazare has said Raghav Chadha and six other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha members would not have quit the party had it followed the "right" path.
"Everyone has the right to hold an opinion in a democracy. They (Chadha and others) must have faced some trouble, which is why they left," Hazare told reporters on Friday in Ahilyanagar district of Maharashtra.
AAP Rajya Sabha members Raghav Chadha and Sandeep Pathak addressed a joint press conference in Delhi on Friday, announcing their exit from the Arvind Kejriwal-led party to join the BJP.
Chadha claimed that nearly two-thirds of AAP's Rajya Sabha members had quit the party and would function as a separate faction.
"It is their (AAP leadership’s) fault. Had that party followed the right way, they would not have left," Hazare said.
Hazare reiterated that Chadha and others must have faced difficulties within AAP, and that is why they left. "Had the party gone in the right direction, they would not have quit the party," he added.
"There must be some or the other reason (for their leaving AAP). In a democracy, every person has a view about where to stay and leave," Hazare said.
The Chadha-led exodus marks a significant setback for the Kejriwal-led party since its formation in 2012, which followed the momentum of Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement.
