New Delhi, December 21 (IANS). Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has sparked a political controversy by linking Christmas celebrations in the state with the sacrifice of Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) president Sonia Gandhi, drawing strong criticism from the BJP. Addressing the Christmas program organized by the government at the Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad on Saturday, Revanth Reddy said that if people are celebrating Christmas in Telangana today, it is because of the important role and sacrifice of Sonia Gandhi. Referring to both Sonia Gandhi’s birthday and the month of the state’s foundation, he said the month of December holds special significance for Telangana. Bharatiya Janata Party reacted sharply to this statement of CM Reddy. The BJP accused the chief minister of making unfair comparisons and politicizing a religious festival. BJP national spokesperson RP Singh, while talking to news agency IANS, said that Sonia Gandhi has never shown faith in Hindu beliefs. She practices the religion of her birth, Christianity. Many people have pointed out that when she was in power, Christmas was celebrated at her Janpath residence, but not Diwali. Everyone has the right to follow their own beliefs, but the head of state’s comments on this are not appropriate. At the same time, BJP leader Raj Purohit termed Revanth Reddy’s statement as madness and irresponsible. He said, are they comparing the sacrifices of Jesus with the sacrifices of Sonia Gandhi? Is marriage a sacrifice in India? Is this the sacrifice? It cannot be called a sacrifice, therefore the Chief Minister should speak with restraint and responsibility. BJP leader Vikram Randhawa condemned the remarks of the chief minister and accused him of insulting Christianity for political gain. Speaking to IANS, Randhawa said it was condemnable that someone could stoop so low for politics and even use something as important as an international festival for personal gain. I believe it should be condemned worldwide. It is wrong to use the sentiments of the entire community for personal political gain. Earlier, the Telangana unit of BJP also reacted sharply, terming the chief minister’s comments as flattering and mocking Sonia Gandhi’s claim of linking Christmas celebrations. –IANS MS\/DKP Share this story Tags<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi, December 21 (IANS). Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has sparked a political controversy by linking Christmas celebrations in the state with the sacrifice of Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) president Sonia Gandhi, drawing strong criticism from the BJP. Addressing the Christmas program organized by the government at the Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":359019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-359016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}