Left parties on Monday charged that the BJP was "forced to act" and suspend its national spokesperson Nupur Sharma for her controversial remarks against Prophet Mohammed due to pressure from other countries.
The BJP on Sunday suspended Ms. Sharma and expelled its Delhi media head Naveen Kumar Jindal as the row over their remarks against the Prophet escalated with protests from some Muslim countries.
With sharp reaction coming from countries like Kuwait, Qatar and Iran, the BJP had issued a statement asserting that it respects all religions and strongly denounces insult of any religious personality.
Under attack, Ms. Sharma had said, “If my words have caused discomfort or hurt religious feelings of anyone whatsoever, I hereby unconditionally withdraw my statement. It was never my intention to hurt anyone’s religious feelings.” In response to the BJP’s action against its party functionaries, the CPI (M) said the BJP were to “forced to act” in a tweet.
Ms. Sharma's comments, made in a TV debate nearly 10 days back, and Mr. Jindal's now-deleted tweets sparked a Twitter trend calling for a boycott of Indian products in some countries.
Referring to the remarks of the Indian Ambassador in Qatar that the controversial tweets do not, in any manner, reflect views of the government of India and that “these are the views of fringe elements,” CPI General Secretary D Raja asked, “is the government declaring RSS a fringe organisation?”
"BJP, RSS making people fight over religion. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is with the capitalists instead of being with the farmers, workers and labourers," Mr. Raja said.
