A video of Gopal Italia, the President of the Gujarat unit of the Aam Aadmi Party, in which he abuses Bhagwan Satyanarayan and his worship, is going viral on social media. Italia, who according to his Twitter handle, is a former employee of the Gujarat government and has worked as a revenue clerk and a constable, abuses the rituals of Hindus in Gujarati.
https://twitter.com/MrSinha_/status/1408006910364712961
Although this is an old video, it shows the kind of mindset of AAP leaders and raises the question of whether the Kejriwal led party deliberately picks up such leaders and promotes them to the top positions.
“If you do not like what I have to say then block me and leave because I don’t need you. People are spending a lot of money and time on non-scientific and unnecessary things like Satyanarayan Katha, Bhagwad Katha and other such useless things. Still people do not know what they’ll gain out of doing this. They waste other people’s time also. If we spend even 5 paisa on such useless things, we do not have a right to live like humans,” says Italia in the video.
According to Italia, those who attend these Pujas clap like Hijras (eunuchs). “I am ashamed of such people. It angers me. If you don’t like what I said block me. We don’t need those who clap like hijras in name of rituals and culture. Some Sadhu will speak nonsense from the stage and we have to clap like hijras?,” he says.
Italia is not the first leader from AAP whose only qualification is being a rabid Hindu hater. It has an illustrious list including Tahir Hussain, the mastermind of the Delhi riots who was later suspended from the party, and Amanatuallah Khan.
Tahir Hussain has also reportedly admitted to having masterminded the entire riots, in order to teach Hindus a lesson. Hussain told the police that he wanted to do so using his money and political power. It must be remembered that Tahir Hussain was suspended by the AAP only after his role in orchestrating the riots to specifically target Hindus was revealed.
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As per police officials, Tahir used support from Khalid Saifi, Umar Khalid, Ishrat Jahan and Popular Front of India (PFI) member Danish. Tahir reportedly told the police that he was aggrieved after the abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, the Supreme Court ruling in the favour of Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the Centre passing the Citizenship Amendment Act and, hence, decided to take the extreme step.
The other leader, Amanatuallah Khan, denied ration to Hindus of his constituency during the Shaheen Bagh protest. Recently AAP joined the chorus with Samajwadi Party in raising questions over land purchases by the Ram Mandir Trust. It seems AAP is internalizing Congress’s version of secularism.