The nationwide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) have affected the national capital of Delhi severely, but are these violent protests only linked to CAA?
The blame game of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) over violence and power play is known to all. In Delhi, the law and order come under the Ministry of Home Affairs which means that Home Minister Amit Shah controls the Delhi Police. This comes across as quite surprising that BJP MPs of Delhi are claiming that AAP is inciting violent protests in Delhi. The MHA should either take their responsibility or take strict actions against such MPs.
Allegations against AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan of instigating people to take the path of violence during protests should be properly investigated and if found guilty, then strict actions should be taken against him. In the same way, those who torched the buses should be investigated, too. The fresh allegations on Khan and considering his existing image (charges of assaulting the erstwhile CS Anshu Prakash) and other such charges) is a blot on AAP during the election season and they need to come clear.
It seems quite clear that be it AAP, BJP or INC or someone else but someone is using these protests for their personal agenda. Many videos have surfaced online where protesters were not even aware of why they were protesting. Though most of the people who are protesting are genuine and fighting for a cause, there is also a particular group of people who want to defame the protesters.
Not to forget that Delhi Election dates are expected to be announced by January 10, 2020 and the total process will be held by February 2020. This raises suspicions in our mind: are the violent protests which took place under the name of CAA politically motivated to divert the voter’s mind from the main agenda? Are the protests in Seelampur and Jamia an agenda to contest the elections on the name of CAA and communalism?
If we see closely, the latest statement by Amit Shah in Jharkhand election rally that the Ram Mandir construction will start in 4 months raises a pertinent question: is BJP playing the religious sentiment card in the election, again?
Though, we saw that people of Jharkhand rejected this hate politics and BJP had a humiliating defeat in the state.
It is a matter of concern that the BJP which is taking all such actions on the name of fulfilling promises made in their election manifesto is not fulfilling its promise of giving full statehood to Delhi in spite of constant demand by Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. It also took the ‘services’ of Kejriwal government by a Presidential order which was previously under the Delhi governments, a power of transfer and posting of officers, a power without which AAP government feels like a toothless tiger when it comes to handling officials, the power to hire, transfer, suspension and making a contractual employee permanent under Lieutenant-Governor (LG) which was earlier existent under Sheila Dixit’s government.
Delhi has 3 governments – the central government which controls the law and order via LG, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) (which is under BJP) and the Delhi Government that is the AAP government, there should be a concrete comparative discussion on each authority’s performance in Delhi, how much budget the Central government allocated for Delhi, how it was used by AAP, comparison between the schools under Kejriwal’s vs BJP’s MCD schools, the conditions of hospitals under these governments.
Also, the work of DDA, PWD, MLA’s of these parties for their respective constituency, the law and order of Delhi, measures taken by these governments to curb pollution and traffic jam and the work at grassroots level by councillors of these parties, these discussions will prove fruitful for the development of Delhi as this will make it a competitive market where Delhi BJP President Manoj Tiwari was forced to support the subsidy because of Kejriwal government’s successful freebie policies, though Tiwari criticised the current subsidy policy and promised a better subsidy under BJP government, at least he was forced to support subsidy. Now, the situation is such that no party will ever think of declaring no-subsidy electricity in Delhi.
At the same time, let us not forget that AAP MLAs are time and again accused of favouring a particular community, after the defeat in Lok Sabha elections of 2019, even in the statement of CM Arvind Kejriwal, the fact that Muslims shifted to INC at the last moment was not taken in good taste by anyone. Even Kejriwal has been accused of neglecting the case of Ankit Saxena. Due to his religion, he has faced similar allegations on many occasions.
Not to forget that INC is trying hard to gain a come back in Delhi Assembly, thus making it even more difficult to say, who is exploiting the protests for their own personal benefits.
Regarding the recent police brutality at many places including Jamia Milia Islamia, there is no point in raising a finger at protests. This should not be a hindrance to peaceful protests. AAP has good agenda to fight the elections, they have done a lot of work in their tenure, it might be the opposition is Delhi who is trying to malign the image of Delhi Government just before the elections to shift the discussion from work on education, water, electricity, etc. to protest and religion.
Now, it is in the hands of the Delhi voters to choose their agenda in the coming elections concerning the well-being of all citizens of Delhi.