CHANDIGARH: The monument of love is in the eye of a storm. The 17th century mausoleum is now being used as a tool for a political tug-of-war and stoking communal passion to keep the atmosphere surcharged in the run up to the crucial three-phased local bodies elections in UP next month followed by the big battle in 2019.
While BJP leaders are speaking in several voices to cater to the sensitivities of both hardliners and liberals, Samajwadi Party, BSP and Congress are also wading into the controversy to reiterate their ‘secular credentials’. All major parties of UP are in contention in the urban bodies elections, which will be held on November 22, 26 and 29; results will be announced on December 1, eight days before Gujarat goes to the polls. So, the UP results will have a bearing on the crucial Gujarat elections, making the civic polls much more than just a battle over civic and local issues. Hence the clamour to win over voters.
Since the BJP has successfully experimented with polarisation in the 2014 Lok Sabha and 2017 Assembly polls, its leaders are back to play the ‘majority card’, reminding the glorious past of ‘Hindu India’ and how it was plundered and debased by invaders, including Mughal rulers who got monuments like the Taj Mahal built with the sweat and blood of the natives.
Although CM Yogi Adityanath tried his best to salvage the situation after disparaging comments from party leaders Sangeet Som, Cabinet minister Laxmi Narain and Banda MLA Brijesh Pal about the Taj by becoming the first BJP CM to visit the white marvel, the fact is that he had started the debate early this year while speaking in Bihar when he said that the Taj can’t represent Indian culture.
Everybody thought it was not a hollow statement when last month the tourism department of UP government dropped the monument from its tourism brochure about major projects in the state. It later explained that the monument was not included in the brochure as it was only about upcoming projects. “The government has planned a slew of projects to spruce up the area around the monument. There is no question of neglecting it,” said tourism minister Rita Joshi.
“This is their strategy. They don’t want to neglect this cash cow, but at the same time BJP leaders are busy communalising the monument of love to polarise urban voters in the civic polls,” said a Samajwadi Party leader.
“The Centre must have pressured the CM to visit the Taj,” SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said when Yogi visited the monument on Thursday and wielded the broom to clean the area around it. A member of the Akhil Bhartiya Itihaas Sankalan Samiti, the history wing of the RSS, told TV channels that the Taj Mahal was a national heritage site so it should not be bracketed as a monument associated only with Islam and Muslims should not be allowed to use it as a religious site. “If ‘namaz’ is allowed there then Hindus should also be granted permission to perform Shiva prayers at the Taj Mahal which remains closed on Fridays to facilitate the prayers,” he said.
Earlier, BJP MLA Sangeet Som had declared the Taj as a monument built by “traitors”. BJP Rajya Sabha member Vinay Katiyar repeated his old theory, claiming that Taj Mahal was Lord Shiva’s temple called Tejo Mahal, which was converted into a mausoleum by Shah Jahan. Members of Hindu Yuva Vahini, an outfit formed by Yogi, barged into the monument’s campus and tried to recite Shiva Chalisa before they were apprehended last week.
UP Deputy CM Dinesh Sharma, Cabinet minister Laxmi Narain, SP leader Azam Khan, AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi… all have something or the other to say about it. The seventh wonder of the world must have had enough of this attention.
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