Chief minister Nitish Kumar’s JDU on Thursday seemed unconvinced by the BJP’s condemnation of its cultural cell national convener Daya Prakash Sinha’s purported insult of Asoka the Great, alleging that it was an attempt to distort history and demanding action against him.

“The BJP expressed its pain only after we raised the issue. Mere statements won’t do. It should ban Sinha’s book Samrat Asoka and take back the Padma Shri and Sahitya Akademi awards bestowed on him,” JDU national parliamentary board president Upendra Kushwaha said.

Kushwaha asserted that Sinha’s remark against Asoka was an effort to distort the country’s history and was a conspiracy against the principles of Gautam Buddha, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule and Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar.

“This is an effort to change the history of our country. This is carried forward when nobody raises his voice against it. The next generation then starts holding it as true. We will not allow this to happen,” Kushwaha said.

Former IAS officer Sinha, 86, came in the crosshairs of the JDU and various other organisations after describing Asoka, the Mauryan emperor who had a change of heart after the Kalinga War and became an apostle of peace who propagated

Buddhism across the subcontinent and beyond, as “cruel, lustful, sinful, and ugly”. Sinha likened Asoka to Aurangzeb, the Mughal emperor.