Uma Anandan – the only Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate to win one of the 200 councillor seats in the Greater Chennai Corporation, had created controversy during her campaign by praising Nathuram Godse, M.K. Gandhi’s assassin.
Anandan won ward 134, West Mambalam, an area in the city that saw heavy waterlogging after rains in 2021, reportedly creating anger against the previous local government.
In a video clip that did the rounds on social media, according to The News Minute an interviewer asks Anandan, “Are you saying that the majority of those who pick up knives and guns are Christians and Muslims?” to which Anandan replies, “Yes.”
When asked by the interviewer about Godse shooting Gandhi, she asks, “But why did he shoot him?” After in a while in the same clip, she says, “He had his own justification,” and “I have no regrets, I am a supporter of Godse.”
In other old interviews that surfaced after Anandan won the seat, she was also seen defending the caste system and using derogatory words against Dalit leaders.
In one video she says, according to The News Minute, “I have pride in being a Brahmin. I don’t have a caste mania, but I am proud of my heritage.
Castes exist. It is part of our culture.
If caste is gone, we don’t have any culture.” She also talks about “Brahmins hitting back” and used abusive language to describe K. Veeramani, general secretary of the Dravida Kazhagam.
Anandan is not the first BJP leader to have praised Godse. A BJP MP, Pragya Thakur, went so far as to even do it inside parliament.
