INDIAN election frontrunner Narendra Modi on Tuesday (April 22) condemned virulent anti-Muslim remarks by a one-time associate as he sought to keep attention on his core message of development and corruption-free administration.
Praveen Togadia, head of the right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), faces a police investigation after a video appeared to show him urging Hindus to evict Muslims from their neighbourhoods in Gujarat.
Speaking in Gujarat on Saturday (April 19), Togadia is heard saying: 'We (Hindus) are in a majority – we should have the courage to intimidate them by taking the law in our own hands.'
A lawyer for Togadia said the clip was 'false, malafide and mischievous'.
Modi said he 'disapproved' of the statement from Togadia, an associate when both men were in grassroots Hindu groups in the 1980s.
'Petty statements by those claiming to be BJP's well-wishers are deviating the campaign from the issues of development and good governance,' he wrote on Twitter.
Last week, Giriraj Singh, a BJP leader in Bihar, said critics of the 63-year-old leader 'will have to go to Pakistan'.
Modi's closest aide, Amit Shah, was temporarily banned from campaigning after he made inflammatory remarks in a constituency torn by anti-Muslim riots last September, urging supporters to seek “revenge” at the ballot box.
