Jinnah resurrected before UP bypolls
LUCKNOW: WITH by-elections to the Kairana Lok Sabha seat and Noorpur Assembly seat slated for May 28 and parties becoming hyperactive to pass the poll test, there seems to be more to the controversy over the portrait of Mohammad Ali Jinnah in the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU)campus than meets the eye.
Given the timing and the way the issue has been highlighted, political opponents of the BJP are calling it a ploy by the ruling party to stir up communal passion with an eye on the bypolls.“BJP’s desperation is understandable. After biting the dust in their bastion Gorakhpur and losing Phulpur too, they can go to any extent to win Kairana and Noorpur,” said a Samajwadi Party (SP) leader, claiming his party was yet to take a stand on the issue of Jinnah’s portrait hanging in AMU’s students’ union hall.
The bypolls are important for the BJP, especially with the Opposition parties making efforts to forge a common front against the saffron party. The SP has announced that it would field its candidates in the two constituencies, and the BSP is observing a guarded silence. However, BSP chief Mayawati had already announced that she will not activate her party cadres before the 2019 general elections. Observers take it as her refusal to back the SP as it did in the Gorakhpur and Phulpur bypolls.
Earlier, the Rashtriya Lok Dal was planning to field its general secretary and president Ajit Singh’s son Jayant Chaudhary, since Jat-dominated Kairana has been a stronghold of the party in the past. But now the RLD leadership is holding parleys with the SP to find a common path. In such a scenario, the Congress, which claims having a noticeable presence in western UP, will be left with no choice but to back the joint Opposition candidate.
The BJP, stung by its defeats in Gorakhpur and Phulpur, does not want to leave anything to chance in Kairana and Noorpur, the two seats having fallen vacant due to the death of party lawmakers.Many of its top brass, including organisational secretary Sunil Bansal and a couple of RSS functionaries are camping in the two communally sensitive constituencies to thrash out a strategy to counter Opposition unity.With filing of nomination papers for the bypolls having begun, political experts and the Opposition see the AMU row as a bid to polarise the electorate on communal lines to the benefit of the BJP.
The Jinnah issue came up after BJP MP from Aligarh, Satish Gautam, wrote to AMU Vice Chancellor Tariq Mansoor asking why the portrait of Pakistan founder was decorating the walls of the students’ union hall.“Whenever there are polls, the BJP resorts to such tactics. They deliberately try to precipitate communal frenzy through fabricated provocative messages,” said a Congress leader.
Political commentator and former IPS officer S R Darapuri echoed the view, saying that the portrait had been hanging there for 80 years. “Why has this issue been raised now?” he asked.A BSP leader said the Sangh Pariwar’s rumour-mongering machine was at work. “But now people have understood their design. They won’t fall into their Hindutva trap,” he maintained.The BJP, on the other hand, says the issue is being given apolitical colour unnecessarily.