New Delhi: In India two months after being
forced to skip Jaipur Literary Festival, controversial author
Salman Rushdie on Saturday hit out a Congress, suggesting that his
presence there was blocked because of "useless electoral
calculations" and told Rahul Gandhi that "it did not work".
The renowed author, who has been castigated by
fundamentalist Muslim groups for his book `The Satanic
Verses`, said blocking his presence in Jaipur "led the
Congress party down the road" in Uttar Pradesh Assembly
elections.
Participating in India Today Conclave, he said the India
"deserves to be led by better leaders than is being now".
Referring to the controversy which surrounded the Jaipur
Festival in January which forced him to skip the event, he
said, "What happened there is not Deobandi bigotry... It was
pretty useless electoral calculations. It did not work, Rahul
(Gandhi)."
He suggested that this "led to the debacle" of Congress in
Uttar Pradesh.
"Indian electorate is smarter than these politicians...
People can be whipped as in Jaipur Literary Festival," Rushdie
said, adding 95 per cent of Muslims are not interested in
violence and that would be true for Hindus too.
He spoke further at a session with the theme `Liberty versus: I am
what I am and that`s all that I am`.
The author had in January had asserted that he would come
to India whenever his busy schedule permits without allowing
"these religious gangsters and their cronies in the government
to stop me" and asked the government to "deal with it".
His presence at the Conclave had prompted Pakistan`s
cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan to pull out of the
event.
Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf party chief Khan had said that he
"could not even think of participating in any programme that
included Salman Rushdie, who has caused immeasurable hurt to
Muslims across the globe."
Anticipating protests, security was strengthened in and
out of the five-star hotel.
PTI
