PANJIM: The Opposition Congress on Tuesday castigated Cooperation Minister and MGP president Pandurang Deepak Dhavalikar and his wife Lata over remarks against convent schools, arguing that BJP patriarch L K Advani had studied in a missionary school, but still remained a Hindutva icon. He termed the outbursts as regressive and coming from a communal mindset that aims to divide secular Goan society.
“BJP’s senior-most leader Advani went to a convent school during his childhood. But he still remains an icon of Hindutva. He did not get swayed by Western culture,” Congress spokesperson Agnelo Fernandes argued.
“Convent school education did not make him a person of Western culture. Why is Dhavalikar raising such issues which have the potential to arouse communal hatred?” Fernandes questioned.
The Congress spokesman said that people should not fall prey to such statements which link Western culture to rape. “It is a regressive and communal mindset that aims to divide secular Goan society,” Fernandes claimed.
Dhavalikar, while endorsing his wife’s views, had urged parents against enrolling their wards in convent schools as they don’t teach Hindu culture. He had also said that the Western culture provoked rape.
Indirectly hinting that party will not seek MGP support in near future, Congress leader Sunil Kawthankar said that “party will not take support from any such organization or political outfit that propagates communal disharmony”. He was responding to the question when asked whether Congress will seek MGP support in future to come to power.
“We will prefer to remain in Opposition rather than taking support from such organizations,” he added. MGP were alliance partners in the Congress government between 2007 and 2012.
