By Arun Srivastava
PATNA: Weaponisation of politics by the BJP strongman, Amit Shah, got its crude manifestation on Friday August 29 with the BJP cadres led by their two senior ministers, attacking the state office of Congress, Sadaquat ashram, which was once the abode of the former president Rajendra Prasad after his retirement, in retaliation to the alleged using of abusive words against Modi’s mother by a so-called congress worker in Darbhanga.
This attack has not come as a surprise. It has all the ingredients of a well-designed plan. If the identity of the abuser is mysterious, the simultaneous attack at Calcutta office of the Congress by the BJP cadres on Friday on the same issue, simply reinforces the design. Nevertheless this is purely an act of Hara-kiri. It is beyond comprehension how could any political party indulge in this kind of despotic action, that is too just two months ahead of holding the assembly election and it has been under severe public scanner for its role in sabotaging the electoral process and denying the Dalits and proletariats of their right to vote.
But this is the shadow of the style of Amit Shah’s politics. Addressing a rally in Assam on the same day, Amit Shah asked Rahul Gandhi to apologise for the “abuses” hurled at Narendra Modi and his late mother during the Congress leader’s ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ in Bihar. He accused Rahul of lowering the standard of political discourse. Shah said: “if he has any shame left, he should apologise. The nation is watching him and his party in disgust.”
Being the Home Minister he certainly must be having the information that Rahul was not on the dais in Darbhanga at the time the incident took place. He was in Muzaffarpur some 100 km far away from Darbhanga. By asking Rahul to apologise, he was simply instigating his cadres to resort to violent protest. Amit Shah even described the Bihar yatra as a “Ghuspetiya Bachao Yatra (Save Infiltrators Yatra)” and claimed that Gandhi’s politics has touched the “lowest level.”
A viral video that emerged online on Thursday, showed a person, who was later identified by the police as Mohammad Arif, a BJP cadre belonging to its minority cell. Arif alias Raha was seen wearing BJP scarf and sharing space with some other BJP leaders. The police has arrested him for abusing Modi and his mother. With Arif’s arrest it became clear that Rahul had no role in this incident relating to abuse.
The police officers in Bihar are also surprised at the mobilisation of the BJP cadres at the gate of Sadaquat Ashram and ransacking the Congress office. At the time the BJP cadres stormed the Congress headquarters in Patna, a very small number of Congress workers were present inside the office. Later they rushed and foiled the attempt of the BJP cadres to destroy the office. The B JP cadres have damaged some vehicles parked inside the office compound. State minister Nitin Navin who led the attackers was heard saying “We will not tolerate the insult to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Rahul Gandhi, his party and alliance partners will have to apologise”.
Even some BJP leaders confess that the popular support the Yatra has been receiving has unnerved the national BJP leaders. Amit Shah had instructed the state leaders to feed him with the current situation. The national leaders became frightened of the Yatra once it entered into Mithilanchal zone. They earlier nursed that after covering the south Bihar region, where the RJD and CPI(ML) have strong bases, the Yatra will lose tenacity. But it belied their expectation and analysis. In Mithilanchal the support yatra received was beyond their expectation.
Retorting to BJP leaders’ accusation, Rahul said; ‘Violence and falsehood stand no chance before truth and non-violence. Indulge in assault and vandalism to your heart’s content. We will continue our fight to protect truth and the Constitution. Truth always triumphs! (Satyamev Jayate)”.
Nevertheless this incident brought Modi’s vile attacks against Sonia Gandhi and other Nehru-Gandhi members under public scrutiny and scanner. Videos were unearthed in which Modi was heard using derogatory remarks. RJD national spokesperson and MP Manoj Jha said, “We took no time in condemning the incident. But has the BJP ever apologised for many foul remarks made, over the years, by its top leaders, including the Prime Minister himself? They are the followers of Nathuram Godse who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. Today, they could not have fired bullets, so they wielded sticks”.
Feedback from the rural areas reveal that this action of BJP has met with severe criticism from the common people and villagers. They nurse the view that bewildered at the popular support the Voter Adhikar Yatra was receiving across the state the BJP has decided to foil Yatra through resorting to this nature of criminal action. There is o doubt that attack on historical Sadaquat Ashram in Patna, led by a cabinet minister and other BJP leaders, is an act of cowardice.
What has indeed has come as a brute shock is the aversion of the state police to protect this historical complex. Viral videos reveal that only four or five policeman had rushed to Ashram to tackle the situation. Strange enough, the senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad who observed; “Neither Rahul Gandhi, nor Sonia Gandhi nor Tejashwi Yadav has apologised for the deplorable language used for the PM’s late mother” in the same breath confessed; “abusive language was used in Jale assembly segment of Darbhanga on Wednesday when Gandhi, his sister and Congress general secretary Priyanka Vadra and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav had passed through the district on motorcycles.”
Congress leader Pawan Khera, who heads the party’s media suspected the BJP toolkit at work. “We would like to know who had instigated the person to indulge in such behaviour. It is obvious that we would not do anything that would take the focus away from yatra. The BJP toolkit works by planting such elements in gatherings of opposition parties so that its leaders can later on raise a huge and cry”.
In Calcutta a group of BJP supporters vandalised Congress headquarters at the Bidhan Bhavan on CIT Road. Demanding Rahul’s apology they burnt party flags and smeared portraits of Rahul Gandhi with black paint. The state Congress president Subhankar Sarkar demanded an explanation from state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya for the ‘dastardly attack’ and called the saffron party ‘uncivilised and barbaric’. Sarkar described the day as “black day in West Bengal’s politics. Politics used to be fought on the streets on the basis of ideologies but never have party offices directly come under attack like this.” (IPA Service)
