Buoyed by the BJP's thumping victory in the Gujarat polls, a belligerent VHP on Tuesday said it will not allow the party to shift from the 'Hindutva' agenda in the state and declared its intention to make everyone acknowledge India as a 'Hindu Rashtra', in two years.
The Sangh Parivar outfit's secretary general Pravin Togadia accused the Congress of speaking in the 'language of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and pre-partition Muslim League' and said the status of Muslims in the 'Hindu Rashtra' would be similar to that of Hindus in Pakistan or 'slightly better'.
"Elections in Gujarat were fought on the Hindutva agenda. We will not allow a shift to the NDA agenda," an aggressive Togadia said at his first press conference in Delhi after the Gujarat poll outcome.
Asked what he expected from the Narendra Modi government, the VHP leader said, "We have been childhood friends. He knows what we want. Issues such as anti-conversion and fight against terrorism are already in the BJP agenda."
He, however, ruled out any VHP role in government formation in the state.
Elaborating on his statement that India would become a 'Hindu Rashtra' in two years, which came in for criticism from both the RSS and the VHP, Togadia said, "India can never be a theocratic state. It was and is a Hindu Rashtra, but not everyone accepts it. We would make everyone in the country acknowledge it in two years."
Togadia claimed the Gujarat elections have proved that 'Hindu bashing is not profitable in India'.
"People have lost faith in the credentials of secularists. Narendra Modi was a villain for secularists, but he was accepted as a hero by the people of Gujarat. Togadia, who was rejected as a lunatic, has now come to the centre stage," the VHP leader said.
"BJP won in Gujarat because of its uncompromising stand on Hindutva and lost UP and Uttaranchal for abandoning Hindutva," he said in a written statement circulated to the media.
Claiming the Gujarat victory would change the direction of politics and the country's future, he said, "There is need to change the ideology of both political parties and organisational composition of a political party, or else new political forces will soon take over."
Pointing to Congress president Sonia Gandhi's decision to launch the party's poll campaign in Gujarat from Ambaji, Togadia said it showed the BJP's ideology has become 'touchable'.
In the coming days, the VHP would galvanise its two million cadres across the country and extend support to 'whoever is with the Hindus', he said.