Keeping up with his pompous image, Narendra Modi had given the green signal to the felicitation ceremony of riot accusers Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana in his “Vijay Shanknaad” rally at Agra. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise from the party who has a history of saving the rioters in full public view.
Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana, both MLAs were accused of causing communal riots at Muzaffarnagar which left 62 unfortunate people dead and over 60,000 homeless. Both were arrested and had NSA slapped on them for their alleged involvement in the riots.
Nonetheless, the BJP had decided to felicitate these two social party workers for their “un-fair” detention by the government during the festive season of dussehra and diwali. Whether this helps the party to attract voters is still to be seen but it has definitely given the much needed spark to BJP’s first rally at Agra with its prime-ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
The felicitation program of these workers falls in line with BJPs communal image and one can foresee the emergence of dictatorial kind of leadership. This move has invited deep criticism from every section, tagging this move of BJP as pure political gimmick as it might trigger fresh memories of the riots.
Despite protest from every section, BJP remain undeterred in its plan to felicitate Som and Rana. It is not difficult to sense the arrogance mood of BJP who is riding high on the past success of Narendra Modi’s rallies at various places viz its prime ministerial campaign. But as they say arrogance is never paid in politics it would have been better if this public acceptance was avoided till the cases were decided by the respective courts.
Whatever the outcomes of the rally amidst high security and Namo Buzz, one thing is clear that BJP will never take even one moment to forego publicity no matter what the cost is. The public appearance of riot accusers with one of the prospective Prime Ministerial candidate is bound to hurt the sentiments of the common people especially those who are still surviving the horrific past.
A person of Narendra Modi stature should have surely shown maturity and decided for the better. The first rally of Modi in the city and Sangeet with Rana taking the centre stage speaks quite low for our future Prime Minister. The common man can only hope for better moments in our country.