Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has maintained that joining organisations within the BJP’s “ideological family requires hard work and dedication”.
In a Twitter post, the BJP leader also asserted that no easy entry should be provided even for his son.
He was reacting to a tweet by academician Ashok Swain, who had shared a photograph of Sarma with his wife and their two children.
Swain, a professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University of Sweden, tweeted: “Hindu supremacist leaders send their kids to study abroad, they wear western clothes, and enjoy a luxury life. But, they never let them join Bajrang Dal or Durga Vahini or BJP IT Cell in the name of ‘Hindus are in Danger’! (sic)”
The photo was originally posted on the micro-blogging site by Sarma himself, stating that it was taken after a family dinner in Bengaluru to mark his wife’s birthday on July 31.
Swain’s comments also come in the backdrop of a controversy over a Rashtriya Bajrang Dal training camp in Darrang district of the state, in which arms training was given to the attendees without permission.
The police registered a case against the organisers after a video of the arms training went viral and four people have been arrested in the matter so far.
Re-sharing Swain’s post, Sarma expressed surprise that the academician and writer drew “such drastic conclusions from just one family photograph”.
“Joining the BJP IT cell or any other organisation within our ideological family requires hard work and dedication. It should not be solely based on being the son or daughter of a leader. Your suggestion of an easy entry to our kids gives impression that you believe in promoting dynastic succession,” the CM wrote in a Twitter post.
“Do not provide an easy entry for my son. Let him earn it,” the BJP leader added.
Sarma said his son is now 22 years of age and studying and it will be unfair to assume that he will not make the right choices at the right age.
-With PTI Input
