Hijab row separatist agenda of Cong’s tool kit gang, won’t let it succeed: VHP

PTI, Feb 9, 2022, 7:50 PM IST

The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Wednesday claimed that the ongoing row over wearing of hijab in educational institutions in Karnataka is a conspiracy of Congress-led ”tool kit gang” to push ”separatist agenda” and create an atmosphere of ”anarchy” across the country.

Slamming the Congress on the issue, the saffron group’s joint general secretary Surendra Jain alleged that Popular Front of India (PFI) is also involved in the conspiracy and appealed to the Karnataka government to expose the culprits and ensure they get ”strictest punishment”.

”The row over hijab, which started from Udupi, Karnataka, has now taken a massive form in the country. It’s no more just a controversy. It has become ‘hijab jihad’. Fanatic elements going ahead with this separatist agenda. Tool-kit gang under the leadership of Congress has become active across the world to create an atmosphere of anarchy in the country under a conspiracy,” Jain charged in a video message.

He, however, asserted a ”vigilant” Hindu society and the Karnataka government will not alow the ”jihadi fanatic elements” succeed in their agenda.

”The VHP appeals to Karnataka government to expose the conspiracy and ensure that strictest punishment is given to the culprits of such anti-national move. It should be stopped,” Jain said.

The hijab controversy first erupted in January at a government PU College in Udupi, where six students who attended classes wearing headscarf in violation of the stipulated dress code were asked to leave the campus, has spread to different parts of the state with Hindu students too responding by turning up in saffron shawls.

Blaming the Congress for the row over the issue, the VHP leader hit out at the party’s leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra for her remarks that it is a woman’s right to decide what she wants to wear, whether a bikini, a ghoonghat, a pair of jeans or a hijab.

”Has she (Priyanka Gandhi) lost her mental balance. You want to send girls to classrooms in bikini?” he asked.

He also slammed Congress’s Karnataka chief D K Shivakumar, alleging that he tried to spread a wrong information on social media about hoisting of a saffron flag in Shivmogga.

”But Shivakumar tried to make a video viral on twitter alleging that saffron flag was hoisted, insulting the national flag,” he said.

The VHP leader said the saffron flag was hoisted on a pole on which national flag was not flying and the police have also confirmed it, he said ”You (Congress) have stooped down to such a low level in desperation of power. People of the county will give you a befitting reply and would not let jihadi agenda succeed,” he added.