Maha right-wing leader Bhide says PM's Buddha comment wrong

Controversial right-wing leader Sambhaji Bhide on Sunday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was "wrong" in talking about Lord Buddha as his teachings was "not useful" to bring about "order" in today's world.

Addressing the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Friday and exhorting nations to put up a joint fight against the menace of terrorism, PM Modi had said India had given the world Buddha's message of peace and not war.

Bhide, speaking in Sangli during a function to mark the beginning of Navratri, claimed the world, at present, didn't need the message of peace, as symbolised by Buddha and his teachings, as much as the "thoughts" of martial figures like Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Sambhaji Maharaj to bring "order" to the world.

Bhide, a former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activist who heads the Shiv Pratishthan Hindustan in Maharashtra, is an accused in the January 1, 2018 Koregaon Bhima caste violence case. However, he was never arrested.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a mistake by saying so (making the Buddha reference). We had given Buddha to the world but it (Buddha's message of peace and tolerance) is not useful any longer. If you need the world to be in order, we need thoughts of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and his son Sambhaji Maharaj," Bhide said.

Bhide has earlier been at the centre of controversy for such statements, prime among which was a claim made during a rally in Nashik that having mangoes from his orchards helped women give birth to sons.

He had also claimed, in September this year, that the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) managed to land a spacecraft on the moon on the 39th attempt as the agency had launched it on 'Ekadashi' day as per the Indian system of time measurement.