THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Shashi Tharoor MP has refused to apologize for having said on Wednesday that the BJP would turn India into a ‘Hindu Pakistan’ if it returns to power in 2019.“There is nothing to apologize. I am quoting their own leaders and their ideology. If you read the basic philosophy of the BJP, it is Hindutva. The RSS and BJP leaders openly speak about a Hindu rashtra. That is the ideology of Pakistan that a nation should be built on religious identity. Pakistan was built as a Muslim nation. We did not create India as a Hindu nation. We built the nation for everybody,” Tharoor said here on Thursday.“Our freedom struggle was to build a nation for everyone, every religion, every caste, every language, every colour and every background. That was how India was built. That was the difference we have with a nation like Pakistan. We are a nation of all. India’s strength is India and it is not a Hindu version of Pakistan,” he said.“Those who are advocating a Hindu rashtra want to build a Hindu version of Pakistan. Many of us who are proud Hindus will not accept and agree to this ideology. Because we are proud of the inclusive India that has been built and sustained for the last 70 years,” he added.While reiterating that he still sticks to the statement made by him against the BJP, he said “I will be very happy if the BJP denounce its own ideology and move away from the ideology of Hindu rashtra. If they are ready to accept this, then I will be the happiest person,” he said.Tharoor while speaking at a book release function here on Wednesday had said that if the BJP comes back to power with the same strength in the Lok Sabha then they will rewrite the Constitution and “will enshrine the principle of Hindu rashtra, that will remove equality for the minorities, and that will create a Hindu Pakistan”.If they win again, “then frankly, our own democratic Constitution, as we understand, will not survive... because then they will have all the three elements they need to tear up the Constitution of India and write a new one,” he said.“...and that is not what Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad and great heroes of freedom struggle fought for,” Tharoor had said.Tharoor’s remarks had created a row and the BJP leaders had sought an apology from him and Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

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