With Indian policing system getting excruciatingly communalised under the command of home minister Amit Shah, the Assam police chief G.P. Singh lodging an FIR against Rahul Gandhi and at least six other senior Congress leaders leading the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, has certainly neither been shocking nor disappointing.
Singh followed the saffron script and slapped the FIR against Congress leaders simply to keep his political master Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma happy and be on his right side. Sycophancy pays. This has been the chief political tenet under the saffron rule. The officials are also aware of the dangerous consequences of questioning their diktats. But Singh implicating these leaders under various sections of the IPC and PDPP (Prevention of Damage to Public Property) Act and handing it over to the CID for a “thorough and in-depth investigation” through an SIT to be constituted by the additional director-general of police, simply underlines that the plan hatched against Rahul has wider implications and multiple dimensions.
Sarma intends to incapacitate Rahul before the Lok Sabha election, and, if possible, arrest him in the middle of the Nyay Yatra and sabotage his mission. Assam police, instead of transferring the case to the CID, should have investigated the charges against Rahul for violation of laws in Guwahati on its own. Singh’s decision to transfer the case suo moto to CID gives rise to apprehension that Sarma has been acting on a plan to send Rahul to jail.
The Congress has described the FIR lodged against Rahul and other leaders who are part of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra as a “political FIR”. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has also written to Amit Shah about the “serious” security issues faced by Rahul and the Yatra in Assam over the last few days. But it does not appear that the letter will have any impact on Modi and Shah.
Kharge in his letter also cited instances of alleged police lapses, including how the cops were “found” protecting the posters of the BJP at Amguri in Sibsagar district, “instead of ensuring safe passage for the Yatra” on January 18. He also mentioned about miscreants associated with the BJP were caught defacing and taking down posters and hoardings of the Yatra in Lakhimpur district and of “outrageous attack” on the Yatra in Sonitpur district on January 21.
Rahul was absolutely right in saying that Sarma’s action has helped the message of Yatra reach to the vast masses of people, which they would not have dreamt of receiving in a normal situation as the mainstream media would have completely airbrushed any Yatra-related news. In fact, Assam Congress also hit out at Sarma by tweeting: “Thank you @himantabiswa Ji for helping us with publicity. BTW, it seems you yourself filed the FIR, such cowardice doesn’t suit you. And rather than wasting so much energy in disrupting the yatra, you could’ve done some real work. No wonder why Assam is spiralling down to the bottom in every aspect.”
What indeed has come as rude shock is the reluctance of constituents of the INDIA bloc to react and condemn this scheming of BJP and Sarma. The day Rahul was confronting the attack of the BJP goons and Assam police action in the state, Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was targeting him and the Congress of not bowing to her sentiments.
She blew the issue of seat-sharing out of proportion and projected it as the primary issue. Her posture has indeed come as a surprise as she was retorting to a statements made by the PCC chief Adhir Ranjan Choudhury. He had demanded 10 seats. In the case of bargain for seat sharing, making such demands are certainly unusual. And this should not have been the reason for Mamata threatening to pull out of the INDIA bloc entirely.
Mamata conveniently forgot that at the Mumbai meet of INDIA, the leaders had pledged to rise above their ego and sacrifice narrow self-interest in their mission to defeat BJP. But Mamata’s stance made it abundantly clear that she had forgotten that pledge. She was not speaking the truth in saying that her decision to fight the elections is due to failed seat-sharing talks with Congress. The fact is so far no serious discussion between the senior leaders of Congress and TMC has taken place. The leaders were engaged in a shadow war through press statements, even after being fully aware that media was extremely hostile to the INDIA bloc.
The decision to part ways with the Opposition alliance comes after Mamata and Adhir Ranjan Choudhury exchanged barbs at each other. The BJP which has been trying to shred the INDIA bloc took advantage of the situation and its IT cell chief Amit Malviya ridiculed saying that Mamata’s decision to fight alone is a “sign of desperation”. “Unable to hold her political ground, she wants to fight all seats, in the hope that she can still be relevant, after the polls. Much against her desire to emerge as the face of the Opposition alliance, no one ever proposed her name. Her several trips to Delhi, to build a national profile, didn’t work. She just couldn’t hide the blood of post poll violence and rid herself of the nauseating stink of appeasement politics,” Malviya said.
Since CPI (M)-led Left Front, Congress and TMC are part of the 28-party opposition INDIA bloc, Mamata cannot be obstinate and must adopt a pragmatic approach. Undeniably, CPI(M) has been her prime enemy, but in the greater fight against autocracy and towards saving democracy, some compromise is crucial. Being a seasoned politician, she cannot ignore this hard truth.
Mamata has one more charged against Congress that it had not informed her about the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’s schedule in the state. But this was vehemently refuted by the Congress leaders who putting the facts straight said that the party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul had written separate letters to Mamata on January 13, informing her about the Yatra. Whether the letters reached her Kalighat residence or the state secretariat Nabanna is not known to them. This in fact questions the efficacy of the functioning of Mamata office. Has she been kept in dark?
Both Rahul and Kharge have made it explicitly public that idea of INDIA is not compatible and also could not be conceived without Mamata. Jairam Ramesh, Congress general secretary said: “Trinamool is a pillar of the alliance, we cannot imagine the alliance without Mamata ji. Tomorrow, our yatra is entering West Bengal. Discussions regarding seat sharing are being done and a result will come soon that will keep everyone satisfied.” Obviously in this backdrop, making an issue of Choudhury’s demand does not behove to her political stature.
Within hours of Mamata’s diatribe of going alone, the chief minister of Punjab, senior AAP leader Bhagwant Singh Mann also cautioned Congress: “There are 13 seats in Punjab and we have shortlisted 40 probable candidates for these seats.” What does it imply? How could Mann ignore the fact that Congress has been a formidable power in Punjab. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress had won eight of the 13 Lok Sabha seats, while the AAP had finished third with just one seat. In the intervening five years, AAP has formed the government in Punjab. But it does not imply that Congress is no more a political power to reckon with in the northern state.
The worst is the case of Nitish Kumar. Just after Modi conferring highest civilian award on Karpoori Thakur, to the utter surprise and repugnance of even his friends and well-wishers, he targeted Congress and even his Mahagathbandhan partner Lalu Yadav. He echoed the Modi’s insinuation against Gandhi family of dynastic rule. While addressing a rally on Thakur’s 100th birth day, he said Thakur, who has been given Bharat Ratna, never promoted his family. Nitish’s attack on dynastic politics was also aimed at Lalu Yadav. His son Tejashvi is the deputy chief minister. His other family members also are members of assembly and legislative council.
Nitish Kumar, who is part of the INDIA bloc, thanked the Centre and Modi for announcing the highest civilian award for Thakur. He even accused the Congress for not according this honour to Thakur during its reign. Obviously, Nitish’s observation would do more harm to INDIA. His party colleagues are in a state of shock at his attitudinal change and see his utterances as a precursor to joining hands with Modi.
But at the same time they affirm that 2024 is not the 2017, when he left the alliance and joined NDA. Already apprehensions are making rounds in the political circle that some senior JD(U) leaders may part company with Nitish and switch over to the RJD. They nurse the feeling that Modi’s designs are not going to help Nitish in Bihar. The ground reality prevailing in the state is different from other states. Nevertheless, they strongly feel that Nitish’s possible volte-face could inflict serious electoral injury to the opposition alliance. (IPA Service)
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