Lucknow: Samajwadi party leader and UP minister Azam Khan has a penchant for issuing statements that ruffle a lot of feathers and leave behind a trail of heated exchanges of words.
As a raging debate is in progress in various parts of the country regarding what is now famously or infamously known as ‘Love Jihad’, Khan’s latest statement is likely to stir up heated responses.
Stating that two prominent leaders of the BJP – Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Shahnawaz Hussein – have indulged in Love Jihad by marrying Hindu women, he has now suggested that they both marry the second time, this time with Muslim women, to make up for their earlier act. He went ahead and stated that there was scope for marrying four women in their religion.
He took a dig at unmarried Sadhvis like Prachi by asking them to remember that it was not possible for any woman to give birth to 40 children. Therefore they should speak of remarriage of persons like Mukhtar and Shahnawaz so that the burden could be shared.
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Seema
But he did not say all this on his own. The subject came up while he was speaking to mediapersons in Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh. When he was prodded into responding to the fact that BJP leaders Mukhtar and Shahnawaz themselves had married Hindu women, he reacted with the advice to the two leaders to get married to Muslim women to make it up.
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi is married to Seema Singhal and Shahnawaz Hussein to Renu Sharma. They have been leading happy married lives without religion coming in the way. The late BJP vice president and former governor of Kerala, Sikandar Bakht, also had married a Hindu woman, Raj Sharma.
Shahnawaz and Renu Sharma
The detractors of the BJP refuse to believe that if Muslims having married Hindu women happened to enjoy high posts in the party it was any coincidence. All the three mentioned here had enjoyed plum posts in the party or NDA government in the past.
Incidentally, former Union minister Subramanian Swamy and BJP leader, has been known as a staunch Muslim-baiter in the recent past and often comes out with controversial statements.
Suhasini Haidar, daughter of Subramanian Swamy
But not many may be aware that his daughter Suhasini Haidar, a well-known face in television journalism – having prominently served in CNN IBN – for many years and who is currently strategic and diplomatic affairs editor with The Hindu English daily, is married to Nadeem Haidar, son of Salman Haidar, former foreign secretary and one-time high commissioner of India in London.
