BJP, SP are polarising the issue
Ajay Maken
There have been contradictory statements on behalf of the BJP, both in terms of numbers and facts, about the Mathura and Kairana incidents. These contradictions clearly show the evil designs of the saffron brigade. After its utter failure to fulfil its promises on overall development of the country, they are trying to divide the polity on communal lines.
First local MP Hukum Singh said 436 families have fled from the area. When media reports suggested that many families were still staying in the area and had left the place about a decade ago for business reasons, Mr Singh agreed that there could have been some error in his facts.
Now the BJP has sent a fact-finding team to the area. The Samajwadi Party-led government has asked the administration for a report. Both the SP and the BJP are trying to communalise and polarise the issue for their political benefit. If any single family has been forced to leave the area because of any law and order situation, then it is very unfortunate and the government is fully responsible for this.
We would like to tell the ruling parties at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh to refrain from polarising the electorate for electoral gains for the coming 2017 Assembly elections. After having failed to deliver on key promises, like curbing corruption, creating large-scale employment and an effective check on rising prices, the BJP is all set to play communal card for the coming Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.
The party, which even failed to open its account in the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry polls, and fared miserably in Kerala and West Bengal seems to be embracing its old-age formula of communalising electorate for political gains.
The continuous utterances of the BJP’s ministers, parliamentarians and legislators, like Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Yogi Adityanath, Giriraj Singh, Gen. V.K. Singh, Sangeet Som and
Mr Singh, clearly indicates the evil designs of the party. The mask of the development plank is off their face and people can see their true face of communal politics. According to the World Bank report, public-private investments have reached a 10-year low. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had promised to generate 10 crore jobs in five years, has been able to generate only 1.38 lakh jobs in the last two years. Even the Lokpal is in abeyance. For the first time, the CVC and CIC appointments were delayed by up to one year. Thus the government has ended up doing nothing to showcase with respect to price-rise control measures, employment generation, transparency in governance and overall development of the country. As a result, it is resorting to communalising the 2017 elections.
Ajay Maken is former Union minister and the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president
SP’s politics of minority appeasement
Vijender Gupta
As the Narendra Modi government completed two years in office, the Indian economy registered a growth rate of 7.9 per cent, inflation is down to five per cent, current account deficit has fallen within one per cent of GDP and the rupee has remained stable against the dollar. An economy “in trouble” two years ago is now counted among the strongest economies in the world by the World Bank and IMF. It is a government with not even a single episode of corruption. A government which has won majority seats in four states (Maharashtra, Assam, Jharkhand and Haryana) and has a coalition government in J&K post-Lok Sabha elections in 2014: figures which suggest that people’s verdict was more than mere expression of anti-incumbency and had voted “for change, prosperity, peace, development and good governance”.
Amidst such successful record of governance, it is not surprising that the united Opposition is once again raising the bogey of communal polarisation as the BJP’s agenda in the Uttar Pradesh election. While people in UP are talking about development and good governance, it is sad to see landgrab incidents in Mathura and the Hindu exodus in Kairana, indicating a total lack of governance by the SP.
Kairana, located near Muzaffarnagar, where riots took place just a few years ago, has witnessed large-scale exodus of Hindu community due to perceived threat from other community and inability of the state authorities to instil confidence among Hindu families. It is imperative for the state to ensure that the shameful history of Kashmiri pandits, who were chased out of their homeland by Islamic fundamentalists, is not repeated. The collapse of law and order in UP was recently manifested in Mathura’s Jawahar Park area, where a lone man set up sprawling illegal settlement that was, for all practical purposes, beyond the writ of the state. The context may be different for Kairana and Mathura, but the key factors driving both episodes are same.
It is possible, as some local officials suggested, that the immediate cause for the migration of some families may have been rising crime and/or a lack of employment opportunities. These must also be seen in the larger law and order context of UP, wherein once again, goonda raj has become the norm. CM Akhilesh Yadav, instead of focusing on good governance, has continued with the SP’s deplorable minority appeasement politics — hoping that with the support of UP’s large Muslim population, he will be able to secure a second term.
The Opposition parties are underplaying the events at Kairana and Mathura by suggesting that they are an election stunt of the BJP. It is unfortunate to politicise the seriousness of law and order situation in UP. In the election, the BJP aims to focus on development agenda and the growing misrule and lawlessness of the ruling Yadav government.
Vijender Gupta is Leader of Opposition, Delhi Assembly
