Medha Patkar dismisses Swamy's remark calling her 'Maoist'

Social activist and Mumbai Lok Sabha candidate Medha Patkar Wednesday dismissed BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's recent remark, terming her a Maoist.

"It is shocking to find Swamy toeing the line of the fundamentalist and distorting my position, making false statements. It is also because he probably needed to become a blue-eyed boy of the BJP, which he has not been, being a late entrant to the party," Patkar said, reacting to Swamy's remark on his social networking site May 1.

Swamy wrote: "Meet the Maoist Prime Donna - Metha Patkar. The list of her anti-Indian activities is long... She demanded mercy for (Afzal Guru and Ajmal Kasab) these terrorists on the grounds of Human Rights."

Swamy said it did not matter to Patkar that Afzal, the Kashmiri separatist, attacked our parliament - the biggest symbol of our democracy, value system and freedom. He took innocent lives and had no remorse about it.

"It doesn't matter to Patkar that Kasab, with his other Jihadi fanatics from Pakistan, was responsible for the death of over 200 innocent people in Mumbai," Swamy added.

Patkar, the Aam Aadmi Party candidate from Mumbai North-East Lok Sabha constituency, hit back saying that all the countrymen were aware how she and her organisations stood for the strongest punishment for all the terrorists always.

"What we are opposed to is only the capital punishment, hanging the culprit," Patkar said.

"Let him prove that I am a Maoist even when the Maoists themselves would never claim the same. Non-violence for us is a value and not merely a strategy. This is based on our sincere commitment to non-violence. More than 100 countries have given up the barbaric punishment which no human being can approve since killing a human being is an inhuman act!" Patkar said.

Dismissing Swamy's "fake criticism... just when (Narendra) Modi is going to polls in Varanasi," Patkar said Swamy had to defend the communal fervour in BJP's campaign.

Swamy had also sought to know whether any of Patkar's comrades had died in a terrorist attack.

"No, never, because there is a nexus, an understanding between all anti-India forces. They never cross each other. Their goal is to slowly break India into fragments. Fragments that hate each other and become slaves once again to the Evangelical and Jihadi powers. Because that's what the weak and divided are," Swamy said.

"However, his purpose would be better served if he targets some of those politicians who are engaged in fake battles on non-issues instead of issues of the people and their struggle," said Patkar.