Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath on Friday said India is home to many religions and Sanatan Dharma does not teach anyone to keep other faiths away.

His statement comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the opposition INDIA bloc of trying to "destroy" Sanatan Dharma. Speaking at events in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh on Thursday, the PM alleged that the newly-formed front of anti-BJP parties wants to erase Bharat as well as its rich culture of thousands of years.

Talking to reporters in Ashok Nagar town in Madhya Pradesh, Nath said, "All of us have accepted Sanatan Dharma. There is no need to tell anyone about it. There is no point in making someone understand that our country is a nation of Sanatan Dharma as there are other religions too. Sanatan Dharma never teaches anyone to keep other religions away."

Tamil Nadu minister Udhayanidhi Stalin recently kicked up a row after he compared Sanatan Dharma with diseases like malaria and dengue, and called for its "eradication".

Stalin's party DMK is a key constituent of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), a grouping of more than two dozen anti-BJP outfits.

When asked about the distribution of tickets by the Congress in the upcoming Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, Nath said, nobody from other party will be given entry into the party until the local unit of the organisation gives its approval for that.

"Party tickets will be given only on the basis of surveys conducted by the Congress's state unit and the All India Congress Committee (AICC)...," the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister said.

When asked about Jyotiraditya Scindia, who quit the Congress in March 2020 and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party before being made a Union minister, the state Congress president said, "Scindia ji is now in the BJP. He has decided his fate and now the BJP will decide his future."

On the "revdi" (freebies) culture, Nath said that since the last four to five months, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's "machine of making false announcements has been running at a double speed".

"He started remembering employees, women and youths, among others, after 18 years. Today, MP has a debt burden of Rs 3.30 lakh crore. What have they done with this loan? This question should be asked," Nath said.

He also claimed that the state government has awarded big contracts in lieu of commission as advance.

"But has it benefited the outsourced, contractual, ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) and USHA (Urban Slum Health Action Programme) workers or whether any college was set up here as announced?" he asked.

"CM Chouhan indulged in all this in the last four-five months just to wash off his sins of the last 18 years," Nath alleged.

He also accused the state government of indulging in corruption.

"People are fully aware that this government is corrupt, indulges in scams and loot. People know it very well and they are not happy with it," he said.

"The situation in the state is such that there are no doctors in hospitals, no teachers in schools, no cables on electricity poles and at places where cables are in place, there is no electricity. People are fully aware of it," he alleged.

Another senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh was present at the press conference addressed by Nath.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.