BJP VP resigns, cites threat to secularim
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, November 18 2018:
BJP Manipur Pradesh vice-president and retired IAS officer AR Khan has resigned from the party.
Speaking to media persons at his Kshetri Bengoon residence today, AR Khan announced his resignation from BJP.
He said that he left BJP because the BJP-led Governments of the Centre and the State have been attacking democratic institutions and challenging the very foundation of secularism apart from indulging in all kinds of awkward activities.
Socio-political changes seen in the country after the BJP-led Government was sworn in at the Centre in 2014 are rather disappointing.
The BJP-led Government of the State has little difference from the Central Government, Khan remarked.
BJP has been driving political wedges between Hindus and Muslims and other minorities thereby sowing seeds of communal discord.
It is a direct challenge to the idea of 'Unity in Diversity", he said.
The Central Government's attempt to implement the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016 which would grant citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants while keeping away Muslims from the same benefit is another challenge to democracy.
Moreover, many innocent people belonging to Muslim and other minority communities have been tortured and killed in the name of preventing cow slaughter, he continued.
The country's growth rate has been impeded severely due to introduction of GST at a time when the people were yet to tide over the woes caused by demonetisation, he said.
Out of the many encroachments into reserved forest areas, only the encroachers of Kshetri Bengoon were evicted by the State Government which smacked of open segregation of minorities, Khan said.
He further pointed out the BJP-led Governments of the State and the Centre failed miserably to resolve the Manipur University crisis in time.