Shashi Tharoor: No good Hindu would want Ram temple built "by demolishing other place of worship"

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said on October 14 that people have to "brace for unpleasantness" in the coming months, as the ruling dispensation could stoke communal tensions for electoral gains.

"I think we have to brace ourselves for some more unpleasantness in the months to come because there has been a correlation, in the not so distant past, between the advent of elections and the stoking of religious passions, communal rioting. That is indeed my worry," Tharoor said, during an interview at The Hindu Lit for Life Dialogue. Tharoor made the remark without naming any particular party.

The Member of Parliament (MP) from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, also spoke about the Ram Mandir issue.

Even though majority of Hindus believe that Ayodhya was Lord Ram's birthplace, no good Hindu would want to see a Ram temple built there "by demolishing somebody else’s place of worship," Tharoor said.

Tharoor also raised the issue of appointments made in central institutions. He said that he has no problems with any appointments as long as appointees are qualified.

"But it appears in many of these cases, the only qualification that these appointees possess is loyalty to a particular cause, in particular the RSS, and their lack of any other academic pedigree casts doubt on the fitness to the office they have been appointed," he added.

The former Ministry of Human Resource Development also criticised Vice Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) for seeking installation of an Army tank in the campus, calling it "the most appalling" decision to have been taken by a VC.