In Uttar Pradesh, the election campaign is getting increasingly reminiscent of the communal discourse prevalent during the Ramjanmabhoomi days in the 1990s.
On a day the Bijnor police registered an FIR against Amit Shah, BJP general secretary and Narendra Modi’s confidant, under Section 153 of the IPC for his alleged provocative speeches in the area, the BJP stepped up the rhetoric against the Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP), accusing them of pandering to the minorities.
The FIR against Shah follows statements made by him in the communally charged Western UP. Last week, Shah had met the leaders of the Jat community at Raajhar village, 40 km from Muzaffarnagar, along with BJP legislator Suresh Rana, who is accused of instigating the riots last year. “This election is about voting out the government that protects and gives compensation to those who killed Jats,” Shah had said.
“It is about
Coming to Shah’s defence BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “This FIR is a calculated exercise to communalise and polarise the electorate. This is about getting votes in the name of religion. The BJP is fighting elections on the plank of development, it is the Congress and other parties who are appealing to people on communal lines. Why else would the Congress President meet the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid and ask him to get Muslims to vote for the Congress.”
Narendra Modi, in a rally on Sunday in Aligarh, charged that the Congress, the SP and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) with indulging in “vote bank politics”.
“They only talk of secularism but their politics is all about keeping all classes poor through their politics,” said Modi. “Seven hundred riots took place right under the nose of Madam Soniaji in the last one year and 250 of them took place right here under Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav) in UP.”
SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has also constantly referred to the 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat. At a rally in Muzaffarnagar where communal riots took place last winter, Yadav said on Sunday, “A man who disrobed our women, who killed our Muslim brethren, he aspires to be Prime Minister. We will never let that happen.”
The Election Commission, meanwhile, has initiated an inquiry into the alleged hate speech made by Shah. The UP chief electoral officer has been asked to seek tapes of the speech Shah made in Muzzafarnagar. The Congress had earlier moved the poll panel seeking Shah’s arrest. The party also said that Shah should be banned from campaigning for his party. The SP too has made similar demands, calling for restraint on Shah from entering UP.