Earlier, Panjim Mayor Surendra Furtado had condemned the unwarranted utterances from Bhagwat.
Saldanha said that Mother Teresa’s service to humanity was selfless with the good of the poor and the helpless, at heart.
“Converting the beneficiary of her kindness was never her goal,” Saldanha said. However there may have been cases wherein those who witnessed her love and kindness wanted to be like her and converted of their own free will and conviction. Those of us who are selfish and self-centered will never be able to understand and appreciate these selfless acts of love and compassion, she said.
The Goa Pradesh Youth Congress on Thursday demanded an apology from the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat even as it condemned his reported remark that the sole objective of Mother Teresa’s service to the poor was to convert people to Christianity. Addressing media persons, Goa unit president Xavier Fialho demanded an immediate apology from Bhagwat and his organization for hurting the sentiments of the people and for trying to create communal divide through such senseless comment.
“Mother Teresa had dedicated her life to the destitute. She should not be insulted like this,” Fialho said questioning why the Narendra Modi led government is silent on the entire controversy. He said that no doubt Mother Teresa truly believed in the God of the Christians just as Bhagwat believes in the God of Hindus.
As a mark of protest, the Youth Congress Thursday evening burnt an effigy of Bhagwat, and demanded an apology from the State unit of the RSS as well.
The Aam Aadmi Party, Goa unit, also condemned what it called the “highly obnoxious statements” of the RSS chief in reference to Mother Teresa. “This is definitely not the first inflammatory statement by Bhagwat or other RSS leaders, especially since the BJP came to power in May 2014. But it is despicable to think that they chose to target Mother Teresa, who had spent her entire life in selfless service of the poor, the destitute and the needy with care and much needed love,” a press communiqué from AAP said.
AAP also wonders if this statement is just not a slip of the tongue but a well-timed move to smokescreen and divert the attention of people and media while Government goes ahead with its anti farmer ordinance on Land Acquisition.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Monday said that the prime motive behind Mother Teresa’s service to the destitute was converting them to Christianity at a function in a village in Bharatpur, adding that her selfish aim devalued the virtues of a noble cause.
