By Abu Zafar, India Tomorrow,
New Delhi, 20 April 2014: The civil society on Sunday condemned BJP leader Giriraj Singh’s controversial comment in which he said that people who are opposing Narendra Modi will be sent to Pakistan if Modi came to power.
Several activists alleged that it is an old tactic of ‘fascist’ BJP to polarize votes in its favour through such targeted and hate comments.
Varanasi-based activist Lenin Raghuvanshi said that such comments show frustration of Giriraj Singh and his party.
“There is a mindset of fascism in our country but people are not taking it seriously. The performance of BJP is going to be worst and they are making such statement in desperation. They want to play communal card and polarize voters in their favour,” Raghuvanshi, who is also general secretary of People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Rights, told India Tomorrow.
BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is contesting from Varanasi Lok Sabha seat.
Ameeque Jamei of Communist Party of India thinks that through such comments BJP is making an attempt to communalize the whole nation.
“India belongs to each and every citizen whether he or she is Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian. They are making such comments because they are depressed after seeing that secular votes are getting united,” Jamei told India Tomorrow.
“Since long they have been trying to communalize whole nation but by and large they have failed to do so and now they are getting frustrated,” he added.
Ravi Nitesh, who is associated with Aaghaz-e-Dosti, an initiative for Indo-Pakistan friendship, sees such politics very harmful for the betterment of the country.
“These people are very detrimental to society and making society poisonous,” Nitesh alleged.
Recounting losses and trauma caused in the past through communalism and hate politics he thinks that these things give unimaginable loss to the society.
“You can measure other threat to society but this poison is immeasurable,” he explained.
He said that it is duty of party to take strong action against such people
On Saturday while addressing an election rally along with former BJP president Nitin Gadkari in Jharkhand’s Godda district, Giriraj Singh who is BJP candidate from Nawada constituency in Bihar, said “Those opposing Narendra Modi are looking at Pakistan, and such people will have place in Pakistan and not in India.”
Facing huge condemnation and criticism over the statement, several BJP leaders including party chief Rajnath Singh have unapproved his comment but on Sunday Singh again told media persons that he stood by his comments.
However, Alka Verma, a business analyst in an IT company in Noida, says BJP is not honest in this issue.
BJP’s reaction over Singh’s comment “won’t be honest because all this is planned and plotted by the BJP,” she accused.
However, she fears that if any disciplinary action against Singh will backfire and make such people more popular.
“If they are put behind bars then they become more famous because people in India think that the person with criminal record is much powerful than the innocent one,” Verma told India Tomorrow.
She said that in the last general election in 2009 Varun Gandhi had made a similar hate speech, but at the end he won form Pilibhit seat.
She suggests ticket of such candidates should be cancelled by the election commission.
“For such speeches Election Commission should cancel the ticket of such politicians who are raising these past issues like casteism, bomb blasts, Ayodha and Godhra incidents. Candidates should be judged by their own work for India and what they have actually done for India,” she explained.
The comment made by Singh also sparked discussion in social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Noted analyst and poet Pritish Nandy tried to relate this controversy over recent attack on veteran Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir.
“Giriraj Singh thinks I should go to Pakistan. But seeing how Hamid Mir was shot at, no thank you Sir, I will stay in India and vote freely,” Nandy tweeted.
Meanwhile, Congress and JD (U) have threatened to take this issue to the Election Commission.
“We will complain to Election Commission and urge it that Giriraj Singh be arrested for hate speech & for trying to create divide between two sections of society,” JD (U) leader KC Tyagi told reporters on Sunday.
It is interesting to note here that a few hours after Giriraj Singh threatened to send Modi’s opponents to Pakistan the country came to know, through news channels and papers, that his party BJP had allegedly sent emissaries not just to Kashmir to seek support of separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani but also to Pakistan to reach out to government officials and politicians of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League.
