Man refuses to take Muslim driver's cab ride, Ola says it is secular

Ola issued a strong-worded statement saying that the company is a secular platform

Inciting communal sentiments to unfathomable levels, a man cancelled his Ola cab ride after he realised that the driver was a Muslim. As an act of casteist attitude, a verified Twitter user Abhishek Mishra, who apparently belongs to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, tweeted saying that he does not give to his money to “jihadi people”. He had attached a screenshot of his Ola cab booking which named the Ola Muslim driver.

His tweet sparked a communal conversation on the micro-blogging site and was condemned by a host of Twitter users including the likes of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and Delhi Congress leader Sharmistha Mukherjee.

Many said it was an act of encouraging religious discrimination in the country, asking Ola to block such hate-mongering users.

In response to Abhishek Mishra’s anti-Muslim tweet, ride-hailing company Ola issued a strong-worded statement saying that “the company is a secular platform and it does not discriminate its driver partners or customers based on their caste, religion, gender or creed. We urge all our customers and driver partners to treat each other with respect at all times”.

As the criticism he was receiving on the social media and the reactions started to pour in, he again took to Twitter and tweeted the second message and defended his decision on the premise that he has the “right to choose”. He tweeted again asking people to endorse his views by retweeting.

"People starts an attack on me. Can I have no right to choose? If they can run a campaign against Hanuman ji poster on a cab, defamed Hindus and Hindus god in Kathua incident then they must be prepared for a reply," his Twitter post read. With this tweet, he justified his act by saying that Hindus and Hindu Gods were too defamed in the Kathua incident.

Many, who criticised Mishra, also advised him to stop buying fuel as it is imported from the Middle East and urged Ola to ban him from its platform.

Mishra, who claims to be a “Hindutva Thinker” on his Twitter handle, is followed by a score of Union ministers, including Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Minister of Culture Mahesh Sharma. He has over 14,000 followers on Twitter.

Modi will realise Hindus' dream of Ram temple: Togadia

VHP leader Praveen Togadia on Sunday expressed hope that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would ensure a grand Ram Mandir is built in Ayodhaya as decided by the BJP national executive and promised in the Lok Sabha elections.

Togadia, the executive international president of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), told reporters here that a grand temple of Lord Ram would be built at the place where Babri mosque was demolished on December 6, 1992.

"In the national executive meet of the BJP, a promise was made to build Ram temple on the lines of Gujarat's Somnath temple by passing a law in parliament. I trust Narendra Modi," Togadia said.

"I trust that fulfilling the promise made in the party's resolution and promised during elections, he would realise the dream of millions of Hindus for building a temple dedicated to Lord Ram," he added.

Giving a call to all Hindus to stay prepared to construct a grand Ram Mandir, he said the holy men should stay ready to follow direction.

"Lord Ram's temple will be built, just as Sardar Patel had built Somnath temple, meaning by making a legislation in parliament," the VHP leader said.

"They have orchestrated many riots and many others have been planned. RSS should be declared a terrorist organisation," Khan said here.

Hitting back at Khan, BJP secretary Shrikant Sharma said when Prime Ministers like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi could not harm RSS, and then people like him were of little worth. "It's just an effort to create communal tension, appease a section of people and cover up the failures of the Uttar Pradesh government," he said.

He said Khan, Samajwadi Party and Congress suffered from "RSS-phobia" and their rants against it have made no difference to the "nationalist" organisation. PTI

RSS works to integrate country and attach people to their culture, Sharma claimed, adding that Khan and his party represented "fissiparous" forces which believed in thepolitics of appeasement.

On the Ram Mandir issue, Khan said, "We want to assure BJP and RSS that if Babri Masjid is built at the same place (in Ayodhya) all the Muslims of India will leave no stone unturned for the BJP to come back to power".

BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj ruled out construction of a masjid at the disputed site.

"No power in the world can build a masjid there. The entire world may raise chants of Babri, Babri. A temple was there, temple is there and a temple will be there always," he told reporters.

Khan had earlier sparked a row by accusing Jama Masjid's Shahi Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari of being hand-in-glove with Hindu outfits which were "silent" on his son's marriage to a Hindu though they were vociferously raising the issue of "love jihad".

The UP minister had described Bukhari as an RSS agent, a charge dismissed by Bukhari.