BHOPAL: A crisis of sorts has erupted for the ruling BJP in Indore – which is considered the saffron citadel of Madhya Pradesh.
The ruling party’s municipal corporator Kamlesh Kalra has accused the party’s fellow corporator and Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) mayor-in-council member Jitu Yadav’s aides of storming into his house, stripping his teenage son and also misbehaving with his wife in front of his septuagenarian mother.
Kalra, who hails from the Sindhi community, among the staunchest BJP supporters in Indore, has alleged that the entire incident, which was filmed by the accused before making it viral, was carried out at Yadav’s behest.
“I’ve met the Indore police commissioner on Tuesday and demanded that Yadav and his goons be booked in the matter. Denial of justice will force me to quit the BJP and commit suicide along with my family,” Kalra said after meeting the police commissioner Santosh Kumar Singh in Indore.
The Indore police have lodged a FIR in the matter against the accused who are yet to be identified and named. According to a senior Indore police officer, while an FIR has already been lodged in the matter, Jitu Yadav’s name will be added, if his involvement was found in the incident during the course of investigations.
The alleged incident happened on Friday, when armed men (allegedly numbering 50-60) entered Kalra’s house. They subsequently stripped Kalra’s teenage son in the presence of the corporator’s mother and wife. The armed men also damaged property in the house and even threatened to strip corporator Kalra’s wife just like her son.
“They stripped me, misbehaved with my mother and grandmother. I was attacked with knives on the back and a pistol was pointed on my forehead by those who barged into my house and were addressing themselves as our party leader Jitu Yadav’s men,” the BJP corporator’s son said.
The accused men not just misbehaved with Kalra's family members, but filmed the act of stripping the corporator’s son. The video clip (in which verbal abuses are heard being used for the corporator’s wife and septuagenarian mother) was subsequently made viral.
Angered over the incident, the Sindhi community, which forms a crucial voter base of the BJP in Indore’s western areas like Khatiwala Tank, met the local BJP leadership in Indore and demanded action against Jitu Yadav and his men.
Traders from the community downed their shutters in localities of western Indore on Tuesday to protest the incident.
The incident is being seen as the fallout of a telephonic argument recently between Kalra and an IMC employee (who hails from the Yadav caste). In the widely circulated audio clip, which has gone viral, Kalra reportedly used objectionable words for Jitu Yadav when the IMC employee took Yadav’s name. This is perhaps what agitated the men who vandalised Kalra’s house on Friday and misbehaved with the corporator’s family.
Subsequently, angered over Kalra’s telephonic conversation with the IMC employee and utterances for Yadav, men allegedly loyal to Yadav barged into Kalra’s house and misbehaved with the latter's family on Friday.
Coming to know about the armed men having barged into his house on Friday, when Kalra apologized to Yadav for his utterances and requested to stop the armed men from misbehaving with his family, Yadav allegedly used abusive language with him in their telephonic conversation. The audio clip of the conversation between Kalra and Yadav has gone viral and is being probed by the police.
Jitu Yadav, meanwhile, has alleged that people were angered with fellow party corporator Kalra’s misbehavior with the IMC employee over the phone recently, which might have provoked the alleged incident. Yadav also met with state’s CM Dr Mohan Yadav and submitted a memorandum about the entire series of incidents which unfolded recently. “The CM is the head of our family. We hope justice will be done to all,” Yadav told journalists recently. Kalra’s family accompanied by Indore-4 MLA Malini Gaur too had met the MP CM in Indore on Sunday.
Kalra is a corporator from Ward Bo. 65 of Indore-4 assembly constituency represented by four-time sitting BJP MLA and ex-Indore mayor Malini Gaur. While Kalra is considered Gaur’s loyalist, Jitu Yadav, the mayor-in-council (MIC) member of IMC from a ward in Indore-2 assembly segment, is considered a trusted follower of four-time Indore-2 BJP MLA Ramesh Mendola. Mendola is known for long to be close to MP cabinet minister and ex-Indore mayor Kailash Vijayvargiya.
Both Indore-4 and Indore-2 assembly constituencies, despite being BJP impregnable fortresses since early 1990s, are held by politicians from two competing lobbies of the ruling party in Indore. Also known as ‘BJP’s Ayodhya in Indore’ the Indore-4 seat since 1993 has been held by the Gaur family (including Laxman Singh Gaur and after his death by wife Malini Gaur). The Indore-2 assembly seat (which is the other saffron fortress) has been with MP minister Kailash Vijayvargiya and later his trusted man Ramesh Mendola since 1993. While Mendola retained his seat in 2023 for the fourth time, his political mentor Kailash Vijayvargiya wrested the Indore-1 seat from the Congress.
The state BJP president VD Sharma, when asked about the recent incident in Indore, said, “BJP is a systematic organization, which doesn’t look into who’s X and who’s Y. The party’s disciplinary committee will look into the matter and act appropriately.”
The Indore City BJP unit chief Gaurav Randive, meanwhile, said that notices have been served by the party to both the sides, who’ve been given two days to respond.
Why are developments in Indore particularly concerning for the BJP?
Indore is the nucleus of western MP’s communally sensitive Malwa region, which for decades has been the RSS and BJP’s strong base. Currently, the MP CM Dr Mohan Yadav is himself the guardian minister of Indore district, whose politics has largely been dominated by his senior cabinet minister Kailash. The urban development and housing minister Vijayvargiya is the guardian minister of adjoining Dhar district.
The Indore Lok Sabha seat, particularly, has been won by the BJP since 1989, including eight times by ex-LS Speaker Sumitra Mahajan. The party’s second-time MP Shankar Lalwani won the seat in 2024 general elections in a one-sided battle with 10.08 lakh votes, which was the party's largest winning margin anywhere in the country.
In the 2023 Vidhan Sabha polls also all nine assembly seats of Indore district were won by the BJP, whose candidates have also been winning the city’s mayor polls for the last 22 years.
According to a senior BJP leader from Indore, “The recent developments in the party are particularly disturbing, as it’s not just being seen by watchers as a corporator vs corporator battle. If not dealt prudently, it may well start being perceived as a tussle between Indore-2 and Indore-4 BJP."