New Delhi, Apr 14: Enraged by the arrest of its firebrand leader Praveen Togadia, VHP today declared it would actively work against the Congress in the coming Rajasthan Assembly polls even as the BJP said that the state government would have to "bear the consequences" for the ban on tridents and the Sangh Parivar leader's incarceration. "We had stated earlier that we would campaign only if any Hindutva issue is at stake. By banning trishul and arresting Togadia, the state government has forced us to campaign against it," VHP senior vice-president Acharya Giriraj Kishore said on phone from Ajmer.
Kishore, who met Togadia at the Ajmer jail, said that carrying 'trishul' was the religious and fundamental right of Hindus. Asked whether VHP would move the court against the government order, he said, "we are going to the people's court beginning with the state bandh tomorrow."

He, however, said that VHP's campaign would be against the Gehlot regime and not in support of BJP or any other party.
Essential services and schools would be exempted from the bandh tomorrow, the VHP leader said.
Meanwhile, BJP national treasurer and state party in charge Ramdas Aggarwal condemned the notification banning tridents and said, "it is aimed at appeasing one community and harassing the other. By arresting Togadia and others, the government is unnecessarily creating tension in the state."
"The state government would be fully responsible for any communal disharmony and they have to bear the consequences for banning trishul and carrying out the arrests," he said on phone from Jaipur, and added the party supported VHP's bandh call but would not participate in it.

RSS too condemned the ban and Togadia's arrest describing it as "pure political vendetta to appease certain sections of the society." Sangh spokesman Ram Madhav said that RSS supported the VHP's bandh call.

Bureau Report