Bhopal battle set to catch nation’s eye
Setting the stage for an epic battle in Bhopal, the BJP on Wednesday fielded Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, facing trial in Malegaon blast case, in Lok Sabha elections, against Congress heavyweight and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh.
Out on bail, Sadhvi joined the BJP only hours before the party announced her name as its candidate from Bhopal. This is being seen as a clear attempt by the BJP to bring the Hindutva plank at the centre stage of polls in the State, where the BJP had won 27 out of 29 seats in 2014 LS polls.
“I will contest the election from Bhopal and win. Former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is with me,” Sadhvi said after emerging out of the BJP office at Bhopal.
In a way, the face-off between Digvijay and Sadhvi will also be seen as a battle between the hardcore Hindutva represented by the likes of Sadhvi and equally dyed-in-the-wool “secularism” propagated by the likes of Digvijay.
At a rally in Odisha, BJP president Amit Shah on Wednesday described Digvijay as the “creator” of “saffron terror” phrase. The BJP has decided to take the matter to the people’s court by fielding Sadhvi against Digvijay, he said, accusing the Congress of defaming India by coining terms like “Hindu terror” and “saffron terror”.
Referring to the acquittal of several accused, including Swami Aseemanand, in Samjhauta Express blast case, Shah attacked the Congress and said people of Bhopal will punish Digvijay and Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
A senior BJP leader said the party decided to field Sadhvi, who joined the party hours before her candidature was announced, against Digvijay as the latter has been one of the most visible “anti-Hindutva” faces of the Congress.
Also being a high-profile seat as the Madhya Pradesh capital, it can help rally support for the BJP across the State and even outside, he added.
Digvijay has been a bitter critic of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the ideological guide of the BJP, and had allegedly linked it to the 2008 Mumbai terror attack carried out by Pakistani terrorists.
The BJP also decided to field KP Yadav from Guna, a seat held by senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia who is contesting from there. The BJP has named Raj Bahadur Singh and Ramakant Bhargav as its nominees from Sagar and Vidisha respectively.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had won from Vidisha in 2014 but she is not fighting polls this time due to health reasons.
Born in Bhind district of Madhya Pradesh, Sadhvi has had a long association with the Sangh Parivar. A post-graduate in history, she worked with the RSS student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and Durga Vahini, women’s wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
Arrested in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, she was given a clean chit by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), but the trial court refused to discharge her from the case.
The court dropped the charges under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against her, and she is now being tried under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. She was granted bail by the Bombay High Court in 2017.
Six people were killed and over 100 injured when a bomb went off near a mosque in Malegaon in north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008. According to the prosecution, it was the handiwork of a Hindu extremist group.
The BJP has been holding Bhopal Lok Sabha seat, where about 4.5 lakh of the 18 lakh voters are Muslim, since 1989. In the 2018 Assembly elections, the Congress won three out of the eight Assembly segments in the Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency, and in the remaining segments the BJP’s victory margin decreased.
