BJP has disrespected Swami Vivekananda, insulted Hindu society, says Siddaramaiah

Chief minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday slammed the BJP, accusing the saffron party of disrespecting Swami Vivekananda at its state executive committee meeting in Bengaluru on Thursday. The CM said BJP national general secretary Radha Mohan Das Agarwal asking why Vivekananda’s portrait had been displayed on the stage at the meeting showed the party had no regard for the Hindu monk.

“By insulting Vivekananda on his death anniversary, BJP has insulted the entire Hindu society,” the CM said in a post on social media platform X. The party, he added, should openly apologise for this.

Vivekananda stood for brotherhood instead of hatred, scientific thinking instead of ignorance, interfaith coexistence instead of communal strife in the bedrock of Hinduism, said the CM. The Sangh Parivar, he added, had no love for the leader, no matter how much they touted his ideals out for showmanship.


“At the Global Interfaith Conference, Vivekananda, who addressed tens of thousands of people of different religions, cultures and languages from hundreds of countries as ‘My dear brothers and sisters,’ said that Hinduism is universal human thought. But if BJP leaders open their mouths, they incite violence…These thoughts of Vivekananda are not palatable to the BJP, which sows hatred in the name of religious protection. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is no exception to this,” he wrote.

The BJP general secretary in the meanwhile, issued a rebuttal, saying the CM’s comments were proof of how much he feared the BJP. “He [Siddaramaiah] must have heard that I have asked for his resignation on political and moral grounds…the BJP-JDS has defeated him in 139 assembly constituencies out of 224 [in the Lok Sabha polls],” said Agrawal in a post on X, referring to the outcome of the recent Lok Sabha polls.