Gurugram: To seek votes for its Lok Sabha candidate Ashok Tanwar, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) organised a “bulldozer rally” in Sirsa Sunday — a day ahead of Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath’s scheduled rally in the constituency — stirring controversy in the process.
Tanwar, a former Congress MP, is contesting against Congress’s Kumari Selja, a former Union minister, in Sirsa, which will go to polls on 25 May.
While Selja has termed the “bulldozer rally” an intimidation tactic, a political analyst ThePrint spoke to saw it as an attempt to vitiate the atmosphere by reminding people of the Nuh violence, after which bulldozers were used to raze a number of buildings linked to those from the Muslim community who were suspected to be involved in the violence.
As hundreds of bulldozers and JCB machines with saffron flags atop drove through roads and streets across Sirsa town Sunday, the BJP also issued a press note and released pictures from the official email address of the Haryana BJP, [email protected], under the headline “Bulldozer Baba Ke Aane Se Pahle Bulldozermay Hua Sirsa Shehar (Sirsa town brimming with bulldozers ahead of bulldozer baba’s visit).”
According to the press note, the “bulldozer rally” was organised by Sirsa MLA Gopal Kanda (of Haryana Lokhit Party) and his brother, BJP leader Gobind Kanda.
ThePrint reached BJP’s Sirsa Lok Sabha candidate Ashok Tanwar via calls for comment but failed to get a response. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
Tanwar’s official ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) handle Monday had posts of newspaper clippings of the “bulldozer rally” with comments such as, “Media Sathiyon Ka Dhanyawaad (Thank you, media friends).”
मीडिया के साथियों का धन्यवाद!#AbkiBaar400Paar #PhirEkBaarModiSarkar #SirsaMangeAshokTanwar #SirsaKaAshokTanwar #SirsaWithModi #YogiAdityanath pic.twitter.com/rnOYgR9aeR
— Ashok Tanwar (Modi Ka Parivar) (@Tanwar_Indian) May 20, 2024
Ever since Yogi Adityanath took over as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 2017, the bulldozer found its way into the election and political lexicon of Uttar Pradesh and the country at large. This was prompted by the use of bulldozers to raze illegal constructions, allegedly as an extrajudicial tool to crack down against criminals, communal violence accused, and suspected criminals. As a result, the UP CM has earned the sobriquet of “Bulldozer Baba” among the BJP’s supporters.
In Haryana, bulldozers came into the picture when the then BJP-JJP government led at the time by former CM Manohar Lal Khattar bulldozed several homes, shops, and office complexes in the aftermath of communal violence that broke out in Nuh district last July.
It was only after the Punjab and Haryana High Court took suo motu notice of media reports in this regard and ordered a stay on the demolitions last August — asking the state government if “an ethnic cleansing was happening” — that the use of bulldozers to raze properties in Nuh was halted.
Also Read: Two losses and 4 parties later, Ashok Tanwar makes comeback bid in Sirsa as BJP candidate
‘People in Haryana not afraid’
Addressing an election meeting in the New Housing Board Colony in Sirsa late Sunday, Kumari Selja said that Yogi Adityanath was coming to address a rally in Sirsa Monday and that “his bulldozers” had come ahead of him.
“Now, they (BJP) think that they will intimidate the people of Haryana by exhibiting their strength through bulldozer rally,” said Selja as she asked people if they were afraid of bulldozers.
“Kal unhe bairang vaapis bhej do (send Yogi back to UP). Tell him this is Haryana and not Uttar Pradesh where people might be afraid of your bulldozers,” she told them.
The Congress candidate added that she was shocked that the BJP had installed religious saffron flags atop JCB machines as if “bhagwan (God) has sent these bulldozers”. She asked the people to give a befitting reply to the BJP for this kind of “intimidatory tactics”.
Meanwhile, Mahabir Jaglan, a political analyst from Haryana told ThePrint that “everyone knew that bulldozers were used as a tool of suppression of the Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, and in Haryana this was used to bulldoze properties of the Muslim community in Nuh after the communal violence last year”.
“After the Nuh violence, normalcy has returned in the district and the recent incident, where people from the Meo Muslim community saved pilgrims who were trapped in a tourist bus that caught fire last week, shows that they have left the bitter memories of the violence behind. However, the BJP was trying to refresh those memories,” Jaglan alleged.
Jaglan alleged that the BJP has always tried to use tactics that help the party divide on communal or caste lines to win elections. “PM Narendra Modi’s visit to Ambala and Gohana is testimony to this where he didn’t speak of any of the issues like unemployment, inflation, MSP or farmers’ but he concentrated more on Hindu Muslim and mangalsutra,” he added.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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