India's eastern Bihar state kicked out a second radical Hindu leader in as many days and warned it would charge one of them with sedition for attempting to fuel sectarianism in the area.
Bihar's de facto ruler Laloo Prasad Yadav refused to allow the leader of the hardline Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP, World Hindu Forum), Giriraj Kishore, to disembark as he arrived in the state capital Patna on Saturday.
Yadav heads the centrist Rashtriya Janata Dal (National People's Group) which governs the state. His wife Rabri Devi is the state's chief minister.
On Friday, as India celebrated its 56th Independence Day, Yadav refused VHP's hawkish general secretary Praveen Togadia permission to stay after he alighted from a flight from Bombay. Togadia had come to address party followers in the Muslim-dominated district of Patna.
"These people have come to spread communal hatred. I will not allow them to turn Bihar into Gujarat," Yadav said, referring to riots in the western state last year which left some 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead.
Bihar has not experienced major Hindu-Muslim riots since 1991 despite its high crime rate.
"I have consulted lawyers and I have decided to slap sedition charges against Togadia," Yadav added. "I will drag him back to a prison here."
Gujarat is governed by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist BJP party, which has close ideological links with the VHP.
"Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani is here and other BJP leaders can come but not these people," said Yadav.
In New Delhi, the VHP reacted angrily, describing Yadav's action as "theatrics to woo Muslim voters" and accused the maverick politician of being "a threat to democracy".
It called for a state-wide general strike in Bihar on Tuesday to protest the virtual deportation of its two top leaders.
"The state government has encroached upon their fundamental right as citizens of India to propagate their religion," said Mahadeo Prasad Jaisawal, vice president of the VHP's provincial chapter.
"We will not not watch our fundamental rights being trampled upon silently."
In April, Togadia was arrested after defying a ban on distributing tridents to hundreds of Hindu activists in the western state of Rajasthan.
Rights groups and opposition parties have charged the VHP with cranking up its anti-Muslim campaign to woo Hindu votes in elections scheduled to be held in five states later this year.