Amit Shah tried to dispel the distrust and misgivings many people have about the BJP. Not only minorities, but also the weaker sections including Dalits and tribals as well as liberal Hindus themselves have serious reservations about its divisive and polarising polity! But few fears will be allayed, because his words don’t match the actions by his party members on the ground! He tries to obfuscate the issue by selectively comparing the statistics on lynchings between 2011-2014 when the Congress-led UPA Govt was in power and since then when the so-called NDA led by the BJP is in power.
He is twisting the statistics, because the lynchings during the last three years of UPA regime include all type of lynchings, while the lynchings since BJP-led govt came to power in May, 2014 are by so-called cow vigilantes against mostly Muslims and Dalits including farmers. And they are silently backed or encouraged by elements in the BJP and its parivar! He is lying through his teeth when he says that his party does not govern on the basis of caste and religion. The fact is that BJP leaders flog both when it suits them politically to yield rich electoral dividends at the hustings.
It is evident, that members of the Sangh Parivar circulated a fake video purportedly showing two Muslim boys molesting a Hindu girl in 2013, in Muzzafarnagar, UP. The Muzzafarnagar riots followed and about a hundred people were killed, thousands injured and tens of thousands made homeless and refugees. The BJP reaped a bumper harvest by creating a communal divide and polarisation of society! It’s has always reaped electoral benefits when politics of divisiveness and hate are allowed. Now we are seeing a repeat of the same as elections to some states including Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka draw near followed by elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in 2018.
Some political parties want to win elections at any cost, even if it means risking the unity, secularism, and sovereignty of a democratic, pluralist India! These must be identified and confined to the garbage dumps of history by the people, if they don’t want the country to go up in flames!
