ACT Greens candidate reportedly compared bin Laden to Jesus

Harini Rangarajan, 20, reportedly wrote in a blog post that ‘I daydream about dying brutally for my country, my family, my lovers’ – but the party says that was ‘creative work’ that did not reflect her views.

ACT Greens candidate Harini Rangarajan.

ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury has been forced to defend a candidate after revelations about that candidate’s prior blog post that reportedly compared the 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden to Jesus Christ.

Harini Rangarajan, 20, an Australian National University student, is a candidate for the Greens in the upcoming ACT election.

Mr Rattenbury said Ms Rangarajan considered the blog posts “creative works”, in one of which the ABC reported she wrote, “I daydream about dying brutally for my country, my family, my lovers”.

“I’ve gone on to idolise several other martyrs – Bhagat Singh, Husayn ibn Ali, Guru Tegh Bahadur, Che Guevara, Jesus Christ, Balachandran Prabhakaran, Joan of Arc, Osama Bin Laden etc,” her post reportedly read.

Mr Rattenbury, who is part of the Labor-Greens governing coalition in the ACT, said the blog posts “do not reflect (Ms Rangarajan’s) personal views”.

While Mr Rattenbury said the party had not disendorsed Ms Rangarajan, he stopped short of explicitly supporting her.

“The party has not formed a view to disendorse her,” he said.

Asked whether she had his support, he said: “She’s continuing to be a candidate for the party.”

Mr Rattenbury admitted that there had been an “element of our (candidate vetting) processes letting down our party in these circumstances”.

“I think that whilst the content can be concerning or confronting for people in the way they read it, I hope they can accept her assurance,” he said. “This does not reflect her personal views.”

Ms Rangarajan also recently apologised after a door camera caught her removing a Liberal Party candidate’s pamphlet from a voter’s door stoop.