NEW DELHI: Politics took center stage Wednesday as the BJP and Congress exchanged charges for unprecedented violence on Republic Day during the tractor rally by protesting farmers.
A section of protesting farmers had entered the Red Fort on Tuesday and raised flags from some domes of the iconic monument in the national capital. The protesters broke through police barricades at various points and also clashed with the police.
While the BJP blamed Rahul Gandhi for instigating the farmers’ protest, Congress held Amit shah responsible for the violence and labeled him the “weakest” interior minister in the history of India. Congress claimed that the violence was a conspiracy planned by the Modi government to smear farmers.
Union minister Prakash Javadekar He accused Congress of fueling farmers’ protest to create unrest in the country and said India will not tolerate insult to its tricolor.
“Those who have lost in the elections are trying to vitiate the atmosphere in the country by any means,” Javadekar told a news conference at the BJP headquarters.
He said: “Rahul Gandhi not only supported the protest but also instigated. It was the same during the CAA, the Congress holds rallies, they instigate people to take to the streets and the agitation starts the next day. It also happened during this agitation. They are. they instigated farmers. ”
Javadekar said the Punjab government did not make preventive arrests despite indications that there could be problems during the demonstration.
“When some peasant leaders said on the 26th that it was the final match, the Punjab government should have monitored the tractors leaving the state and made preventive arrests of the habitual criminals,” Javadekar said.
Earlier, the head of Congress, Randeep Surjewala, accused the Modi government of being part of a concerted conspiracy to smear the agitation of farmers by allowing some criminals to enter the Red Fort complex and fly a religious flag.
Surjewala asked how a group of 500 people could enter the complex without being detained by the police, who stood as silent bystanders as the criminals indulged in vandalism and violence.
“A concerted conspiracy aided and abetted by the Modi government is developing to smear the entire farmers movement and expel them and bury the demand for repeal of the three black laws against agriculture under the din of the FIRs,” Surjewala said. to journalists.
“It is a huge and colossal security lapse and an intelligence failure on the part of none other than India’s Interior Minister Amit Shah. Amit Shah must be fired without delay,” he said.
Surjewala further said: “Can a Home Secretary, who is the weakest Home Secretary in the history of India in the last 73 years, be allowed to remain in office even for a single day? Amit Shah must be fired and if the Prime Minister does not fire him, it will be evident that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is part of this concerted conspiracy to smear the peasant movement. ”
Meanwhile, a day after the violence in which nearly 400 policemen were injured, the Delhi Police archived more than 25 cases and arrested 19 people in connection with the violence.
While the Delhi police named several farmer leaders in their FIRs, the opposition questioned why no case had been registered against actor-turned-activist Deep Sidhu or Lakha Sidhana.
Deep Sidhu is in the eye of a storm for being among the protesters who placed a religious flag atop the Red Fort on Republic Day.
The bodies of many farmers blamed him for inciting protesters to head towards the Red Fort during the farmers’ tractor parade on Tuesday.
They also accused Sidhu, 36, of allegedly trying to smear the peaceful agitation of farmers against the agricultural reforms introduced by the central government.
Punjab Congress Deputy Jasbir Singh Gill Dimpa, who is protesting against the agricultural laws, said: “Has anyone noticed any case against Deep Sidhu or Lakha Sidhana”?
(With contributions from the agency)
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