BHOPAL: A BJP leader who lost assembly polls to ex-chief minister Digvijaya Singh’s son Jaivardhan Singh in 2013 by nearly 60,000 votes, has now threatened to break the hands and chop off the tongue of former union minister and Congress MP Jyotiraditya Scindia, if Scindia continued to challenge chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
The open threat to Scindia was made by Kirar Dhakad Kshatriya Kalyan Mahasabha leader Radheyshyam Dhakad from the stage of a public program in Kolaras (Shivpuri) on Sunday evening, where those seated on stage, included CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s entrepreneur son Kartikey Singh, ruling BJP MLA Prahlad Bharti, another BJP MLA and state party vice president Rameshwar Sharma and Lok Sabha member from Rajgarh seat Rodmal Nagar.
“Aaj mai Kirar samaj se kahna chaahta hoon, ki ye Scindia akele Shivraj Singh Chouhan ko chunauti nahi de rahein hain, balki poore kirar-dhakad samaj ko chunauti de rahein hain. (I want to tell the Kirar-Dhakad clan, that Scindia is not only challenging the CM, but is daring the entire Kirar-Dhakad caste),” said Dhakad.
“Agar apne (Scindia) nein Shivraj ji ke khilaf ek ungli uthayi, toh hum aapke hath tod denge. Agar juban chalayi, toh zuban kaat lenge aur thikane laga denge (If he points a finger at the CM, we will break his hand and if he speaks against the CM, we will chop off his tongue and then dispose him off),” Dhakad said.
Importantly, the matriculate leader Radheyshyam Dhakad hails from the same Kirar-Dhakad OBC community to which the CM also belongs. The caste has around 40,000 votes in the Kolaras assembly seats, which along with Mungawali seat of adjoining Guna district is likely to go for by-election next month.
The public meeting at which Dhakad made the controversial remarks was held to consolidate the caste’s votes in favour of the ruling BJP in the upcoming Kolaras by-poll which is being largely seen as battle of prestige between CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia.
However, a day after making the controversial statements at the public meeting in Kolaras, the Kirar-Dhakad leader told The New Indian Express in Bhopal that he didn’t literally mean what he uttered against Scindia. “I’ve no regrets about what I said, but what I meant to say was that Kirar-Dhakad clan by not voting this time for Congress candidate in Kolaras will ensure that Scindia loses his political significance (hands and tongue) in the region. Scindia often dubs our leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan as khooni (murderer) and kauravon ki sena (the leader of army of kauravs), it’s my befitting reply to Scindia,” clarified Dhakad on Monday at Bhopal.
While Dhakad made the controversial statements against Scindia from the stage of the public program in Kolaras on Sunday, the CM’s son Kartikey Singh took Scindia over latter’s Kauravon ki Sena jibe against his father Shivraj.
“Such statements by a MP (Scindia) amount to lowering political discourse,” the CM’s floriculturist and dairy business entrepreneur son Singh told people of Dhakad caste not to just look at the BJP candidate in Kolaras by-election, but to vote for his father.
While the ruling BJP state spokesperson Deepak Vijayvargiya distanced the party from Dhakad’s remarks, the Congress state spokesperson Pankaj Chaturvedi said “the Congress doesn’t believe in politics of enmity and hatred, We don’t use such indecent language against our political opponents.”