Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday said there was “some amount” of intolerance in the society which has to be identified and dealt with firmly, instead of generalising it.
Without referring to any particular incident, Naidu participating in the debate in the Rajya Sabha, said people making out of turn statements should be condemned, isolated and disowned. “There is some amount of intolerance in the society, in different areas. That has to be identified, it has to be localised, it has to be dealt with firmly. Instead of that, we are making it generalised,” he said as he referred to instances of killing of dalits and writers in certain states.
He said incidents have not happened overnight after Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister. “These things have been happening. Some people making out of turn statement, we have to condemn, we have to isolate them... they have to be condemned and disowned,” he said. He welcomed senior Congress leader P Chidambaram’s statement that banning of Salman Rushdie’s controversial novel ‘The Satanic Verses’ was “wrong”.