BHOPAL: Two FIRs have been registered against former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and present Congress MP Digvijaya Singh in the BJP-ruled central Indian state in the last 24 hours, for allegedly making a social media post containing “false comments” about former RSS chief MS Golwalkar.
While the first FIR was lodged at Indore’s Tukoganj police station on Saturday late night on the complaint of local advocate Rajesh Joshi, the second FIR was registered on the complaint of RSS worker Haricharan Tiwari on Sunday afternoon at the Rajgarh Kotwali in Rajgarh district, which neighbours Singh’s home district Guna.
Both the FIRs have been lodged under IPC sections 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence), 469 (forgery for purpose of harming reputation), 500 (defamation) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief). Meanwhile, further investigations are underway.
In both the FIRs (lodged by MP High Court advocate Rajesh Joshi and RSS worker Haricharan Tiwari), the complainants have alleged that the post made from the official social media handle of the former MP CM, attributed false comments to the second RSS chief, suggesting that Golwalkar was against equal rights to Dalits, backwards and Muslims.
“By attributing such false comments to the former RSS chief, the ex-CM has deliberately tried to arouse hate for RSS among Dalits, Muslims and backwards and also provoke conflict and enmity between different sections,” the complainants alleged in the complaints.
Earlier, on Saturday early morning, Singh had tweeted and posted on Facebook, a picture of a page carrying several controversial comments quoted to the former RSS chief.
In the post which bore images of Golwalkar and the RSS flag, the second RSS chief was quoted as saying that he would rather live under British rule than have equal rights given to Dalits, backwards and Muslims. Some other controversial comments were also attributed to him.
Reacting to Singh’s post, the RSS too had on Saturday, accused the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister of posting a 'photo-shopped' image. “It is baseless and is meant to cause social disharmony,” senior RSS functionary and organization’s publicity department head Sunil Ambekar had said.
On Sunday, many senior BJP leaders, including CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, state party president VD Sharma and state’s cabinet minister Vishvas Sarang targeted the former CM over his objectionable post.
“Congress leaders are habitual of spreading false propaganda and hatred without understanding the true facts. Guruji (MS Golwalkar) worked lifelong for establishing a harmonious society and eliminating social disparities, so any false propaganda against him is condemnable,” the MP CM tweeted.
“Digvijaya Singh has in his blood genes of Britishers as well as Mughals. His latest post is part of his and Congress’s politics of divide and rule and vitiating the atmosphere in MP. This attempt is unfortunate, but the people of MP won’t allow Singh’s nefarious designs to succeed. This isn’t the first time he has posted false facts on social media; in the past too he had posted a picture of a mosque with a saffron flag related to some other state and a picture of Pakistan’s rickety roads over social media to malign MP, but he had to finally delete those pictures,” state BJP chief VD Sharma said.