Heaping praise on the Bollywood superstar, who was also attacked by senior party leader Kailash Vijayvargiya on Tuesday, BJP said there cannot be any comparison between a law-abiding Indian citizen and a Pakistani terrorist, more so Khan who is a much-loved and respected national.
"His (Adityanath) comments are incorrect and uncalled for. They do not reflect in any way the core belief of BJP or that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"There cannot be any comparison of any law-abiding Indian citizen with a terrorist like Hafiz Saeed, certainly not Khan who is a much loved and respected Indian national and artiste," BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli said.
Pushed on a defensive not long after party chief Amit Shah had warned some party leaders against making controversial statements in the wake of the Dadri lynching and beef row, BJP leaders also referred to Union minister Prakash Javadekar's condemnation of Vijarvargiya's comments to make it clear that the party did not approve of them.
Vijarvargiya had on Tuesday accused Khan of echoing the voice of anti-national forces, alleging he may live in India but his soul lived in Pakistan. He withdrew his tweets on Wednesday .
BJP secretary Srikant Sharma accused Congress of "sponsoring" the campaign by writers, artistes and scientists against the "climate of intolerance", saying it was resorting to these tactics to get over its internal leadership crisis and that it had still not reconciled to Modi's leadership.
"There is peace in the country but disquiet among Congress leaders over the leadership of Rahul Gandhi. So its leadership has resorted to these tactics. It is its intolerance to Modi's leadership as India is doing well on every front and it cannot accept this. So it is sponsoring these protests by so-called writers many of whom had made an appeal to defeat Modi in Lok Sabha elections," he said.