Only Sanatana Dharma followers should have 'stayed back' after Partition: Giriraj Singh

Begusarai: Union minister Giriraj Singh on Saturday rued that at the time of "Partition based on religion", it was not ensured that "only followers of Sanatana Dharma" stayed back in India. The firebrand BJP leader was venting his spleen over controversial remarks reportedly made by Assam leader Badruddin Ajmal, about the Hindu community, while reacting to the BJP's demands for a law for population control.

"The country was divided in the name of religion. Had it been then ensured that only those who believe in Sanatana Dharma would stay back in India, we would not have to put up with abuses of people like Badruddin and (AIMIM chief) Asaduddin Owaisi", the Union Rural Development and Panchayati Raj minister told reporters in his Lok Sabha constituency of Begusarai.

Maintaining that the country needed to control population growth, Singh also challenged "Badruddin and his ilk to speak up against China, which has for years had a strong population control law in place. The neighbouring country had a GDP lower than ours till as recently as the late 1980s. Look where they have reached now".

"China's population law exempted nobody, including Muslims of that country. We are home to 20 per cent of the world's population even though our territory is just 2.5 per cent of the total land mass across the globe. We simply cannot achieve sustainable economic growth unless we take steps to control population growth", Singh asserted.

Badruddin Ajmal in an interview to a media house on Friday had commented on women and Hindu men as well as Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, purportedly as a rejoinder to his remarks on 'love jihad'.

The AIDUF chief, who is revered as a 'maulana', courted controversy by reportedly advising Hindus to marry young to produce more children like Muslims.