Giriraj explains with rotis, glass-houses

‘‘If I have 50 members in my family, won’t I feed them all? Wouldn’t they all eat a roti each?’’ he asked.

He alleged that ‘‘some newspapers’’ had singled out the Sangh Parivar for criticism and threatened to call for their boycott and move the Press Council against them.

‘‘If you target us again and again, we can go to the Press Council and call for a boycott. Newspapers should not forget that our followers also buy their copies,’’ he said, adding that the VHP had done so in the case of one newspaper in a state. He refused to name it even when pressed to do so by journalists.

Kishore said that newspapers too had acquired land at controlled rates, adding that most of them used one or two floors for the purpose mentioned in the conditions governing the allotments renting out the rest of the buildings for huge amounts.

‘‘Those living in glass-houses should not throw stones at others. It is not healthy journalism,’’ he said and appealed to newspapers to ‘‘observe decorum’’ and avoid making ‘‘baseless attempts to defame the Sangh Parivar’’.

The VHP leader maintained that the Government had followed the rules while making land allotments. ‘‘Is it a crime being affiliated to the Sangh?’’ he asked.

He wondered why no one in the media had questioned the land allotted to former prime minister Chandra Shekhar and the Communist Party next to the VHP plot or had tried to find out if they had paid more than the VHP.

The Parishad, the Acharya maintained, had paid over Rs 23.27 lakh for its plot and was required to pay an annual rent of Rs 56,760 for its lease.

When asked about the petrol pumps allotted to Parivar members, the VHP leader said that he would talk about it later.