Priyanka slams BJP over heckling of singer who sang Mahatma Gandhi's favourite 'bhajan'

New Delhi: Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday, December 26, slammed the BJP over the alleged heckling of a woman artiste who sang a bhajan, known to be a favourite of Mahatma Gandhi, and said the ruling party hates the country’s tolerant and inclusive culture so much that it insults its great persons again and again.

The Congress general secretary also alleged that BJP leaders forced folk singer Devi to apologise for singing Bapu’s favourite bhajan and they could not hear — ‘Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram, Patit Pavan Sita Ram’.

“They (BJP) offer flowers to Bapu to show off to the world but in reality, they have no respect for him. They take the name of Babasaheb Ambedkar to show off but in reality, they insult him,” she said in a post in Hindi on X.

“The BJP hates our tolerant and inclusive culture and tradition so much that they insult our great men again and again,” Priyanka Gandhi said and shared a video of the incident in Patna.

Earlier, RJD president Lalu Prasad also slammed the BJP over the alleged heckling of the artiste at a function organised on the birth anniversary of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

BJP sources, who did not wish to be named, pointed out that the newspaper report shared by Prasad in an earlier tweet clearly stated that the furore was not over ‘Sita Ram’, but the subsequent stanza – ‘Ishwar Allah Tero Naam’.

The sources claimed that party workers were opposed to the “recital of a line that was not part of the original verse composed by 15th-century poet Narsi Mehta, but inserted later, apparently in line with Gandhi’s Hindu-Muslim unity plank”.