Bhima Koregaon agitation was manufactured: BJP
New Delhi, June 7: The BJP on Thursday said that the Bhima Koregaon agitation in Maharashtra as "manufactured" and accused the Congress of using Dalits as a "tool" to come back to power.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also demanded an answer from Congress President Rahul Gandhi over a letter written after the agitation by Maoist leader concerning purported role of Congress in backing the outfit legally and financially.
The BJP's attack came a day after the Pune police arrested five people allegedly having close Maoist links, including prominent Dalit activist Sudhir Dhawale from Mumbai, Lawyer Surendra Gadling, activist Mahesh Raut and Shoma Sen from Nagpur and Rona Wilson from Delhi in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence on January 1.
"The hunger for power in the Congress has been exposed as never before to the series of documents and the series of facts that we are going to keep in front of you," BJP leader Sambit Patra told reporteres here at a press conference.
Attacking Congress over the alleged letter recovered from the house of Wilson in Delhi, Patra said, "Letter is an integral document of the Maoists. This letter is means of communication as to how violence can be perpetrated in this country."
Patra said that the Bhima Koregaon incident started on December 31, 2017 and culminated around evening on January 1, 2018 in which a youth lost his life. And the letter was written on January 2, 2018.
According to the BJP leader the letter was allegedly written by a core committee member of the banned outfit, CPI-Maoist, lauding the efforts by Rona and others to make Elgaar Parishad - organised by Dalit and left-wing organisations at Pune's Shaniwarwada on December 31 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Bhima Koregaon battle a success.
"But once you go through this letter and you will find that Dalits were being used as tools," the BJP leader alleged.
He also described the agitation in Bhima Koregaon as a "manufactured agitation" instead of a spontaneous one.
Referring to the contents of the letter, the BJP leader said, "Comrade Deepu and Comrade Manglu have been coordinating the Bhima Koregaon programme with Comrade Sudhir. They have got support from large sections of Dalits acrtoss the state and Comrade Jignesh (Mewani) and Comrade Umer (Khalid) are young fighters of our revolution."
"Last year in July and August the Higher Committee has provided two rounds of funds to Comrade Sudhir (Dhawale) for this task. Comrade Shoma (Sen) and Surendra are authorised to provide funds for future programmes as well. The Bhima Koregaon agitation has been very effective," Patra said.
"The death of a youth must be exploited to prepare future agitations and propaganda materials," he read.
"Can anyone of us think of exploiting the death of a youth? But here it is being done to exploit. It is conspired and a letter is written for that," he said.
"This is a culture which has been set time and again as politcial vulturanism on a dead body. You see a dead as an opportunity. And we condemn this," he said.
Hitting out at the Congress President, Patra said, Gandhi has to answer why he was standing with such people who were trying to break the nation.
"Senior comrades from CPI-Maoists leadership have had prior talks with our friends in Congress who suggested to continue Dalit mobilisation more aggressively whatever legal and financial aide is required they are ready to provide through the intermediary (Jignesh)," Patra said reading from the letter.
He also said that the letter proved that there was an "anti-India gang of urban naxals", who had been trying to subvert the country.
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Devendra Fadnavis plays video of Islamic scholar at Pune rally, harps on 'vote jihad'
Pune, Nov 16: Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis continued to raise the pitch on "vote jihad" by playing a video of Islamic scholar Sajjad Nomani at a poll rally in Pune's Bhosari area on Saturday.
It is being said that a person who votes for the BJP must be ostracised, Fadnavis claimed.
"If these people are trying to do vote jihad, if they are saying they will destabilise the government through vote jihad, then you will also have to do dharmayudh of votes," Fadnavis said.
"If these people dream that they will come to power with the help of votes from one community in the land of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, then you will also have to come to the battlefield," he said in a swipe at the MVA.
