Union Minister Anantkumar Hegde’s “indecent remarks” on AICC president Rahul Gandhi and KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao is “a blot on Indian culture”, Revenue Minister R.V. Deshpande said here on Thursday.
He was reacting to Mr. Hegde’s latest jibe on Mr. Gandhi’s religion, saying that he belonged to an “unknown hybrid” religion, referring to the inter-religious marriage of his parents. Earlier, he has made disparaging remarks about Mr. Rao’s marriage to a Muslim.
Mr. Deshpande said: “Mr. Hegde has the habit of talking recklessly and this is totally against to the spirit of the Constitution and the rich tradition of the nation.”
“Being the Union Minister, it is his foremost duty to protect the ideology of Indian Constitution and its spirit of secularism. But it is unfortunate that a Union Minister himself is against the Indian Constitutional ideology and is a real threat to country’s secularism and unity,” Mr. Deshpande said.
He called upon Mr. Hegde to apologise. “The voters of Uttara Kannada Parliamentary constituency should question the behaviour of their parliamentary representative,” the Minister said.
