New Delhi: A day after senior BJP leader and Union home minister Amit Shah, in a reference to the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protest at Shaheen Bagh, urged voters to press the EVM button in such a way that the ‘current’ reached the venue and more such protests, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal broke his silence on the issue and accused the saffron party of playing dirty communal politics.
Kejriwal had thus far refused to get drawn into the anti-CAA and anti-National Population Register protest issue and has only focused on the functioning of his government over the past five years so that BJP would not be able to made the ongoing Delhi assembly polls polarised like the Lok Sabha elections.
Road closure is causing hardship to students, patients
Talking to the media at the Aam Aadmi Party office, he appealed to all senior BJP leaders to speak to the protesters are Shaheen Bagh and get the Kalindi Kunj road, which connects South Delhi to Noida, opened. The closure of the road has not gone down well with residents on both sides of the Yamuna as it has been causing a lot of inconvenience.
Realising that the BJP may be capitalising on this anger, Kejriwal said that school children and ambulances were among those suffering due to the closure of the road. He charged that the BJP would not get the route open till polling would get over on February 8 and that it was doing politics on every issue.
Also read: Delhi Elections: How BJP and Its Leaders Are Trying to Fan Communal Sentiments
Travel time has gone up from 40 minutes to three hours
The Delhi chief minister, who till now had not spoken about the road closure and has not gone to Shaheen Bagh to express solidarity with the anti-CAA protesters, acknowledged that people were being forced to travel long distances due to the closure and that the normal travel time of 40 minutes has gone up to two-and-a-half to three hours.
Eager not to sound anti-protest, Kejriwal also added to good measure that every person in the country has a right to protest. “But ordinary citizens should not be inconvenienced due to such protests. In Shaheen Bagh, several people have been facing problems for the past many days.”
Responsibility of the Centre to maintain law and order
The AAP leader said it was the BJP that was ruling at the Centre under which Delhi’s law and order falls. He said that the Centre has not done anything to resolve the issue.
Kejriwal also urged Shah to to remember that he was the home minister and was responsible for maintaining the law and order in the country. “India is a democracy and every issue can be resolved through dialogue. So the government should fulfil its legal responsibility and speak to the protesters.”
This is the first time that Kejriwal has openly spoken about the Shaheen Bagh protests. He and his party leaders and candidates have thus far adopted just one line – that these elections are about local issues and CCA-NPR is being used by BJP to deflect attention from real issues.
Also read: Shadow of Anti-CAA Protests Looms Over Delhi Assembly Polls
Skipped mention of protest in earlier video
Even in a video that he released on January 26, Kejriwal made no mention of the Shaheen Bagh protests. He only spoke about how “Amit Shah comes daily and makes fun of the hard work of the people of Delhi in the last five years.”
With Shah having conducted near a score of rallies and roadshows in Delhi already, in which he attacked AAP of not improving the quality of education or health in the city and failing to install the CCTV cameras or the wifi networks it had promised, Kejriwal hit back saying “ it would have been better if your central government had also installed some cameras in Delhi”.
Union home minister Amit Shah has largely remained silent on the protests. Photo: PTI
Kishor takes a dig at Shah
However, before Kejriwal it was the main election strategist of AAP for the Delhi polls, Prashant Kishor, who commented on Shah’s Shaheen Bagh comment. Addressing the party’s social media volunteers, Shah on January 26 had said: “February 8 ke subah parivar ke saath, 10 baje se pehle kamal ke nishaan par button dabainge?… Aur mitron, itni zor se dabana woh button ki current se hi sham ko woh Shaheen Bagh waale uth kar chale jaayein (On the morning of February 8, will you, along with your family, press the lotus symbol before 10 am… and friends, press the button so hard that its current forces the protesters at Shaheen Bagh to leave the place by evening).”
News agency PTI had also quoted him as saying, “Your vote to the BJP candidate will make Delhi and the country safe and prevent thousands of incidents like Shaheen Bagh.”
Kishor, who in the past also successfully framed the election strategy for Narendra Modi when he was prime ministerial candidate in 2014, and for Amarinder Singh in Punjab, Nitish Kumar in Bihar and Jaganmohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh ahead of their respective state assembly elections, on Monday commented that the buttons will be pressed with just love during the polls on February 8.
Also read: Post CAA, BJP-Linked WhatsApp Groups Mount a Campaign to Foment Communalism
‘Ensure brotherhood and friendship is not endangered’
His statement came in response to Shah’s urging voters to express their anger against the anti-CAA protests at Shaheen Bagh, which have been going on since December 15, through their vote.
Though the protests at Shaheen Bagh are witnessing the participation of activists from various ideological backgrounds and political groups, the BJP is using their expression of anger against the Citizenship Amendment Act as some form of religious rebellion. By questioning who is distributing biryani and money among the protesters, it has not only tried to communalise the issue but also tarnish the sentiments behind the protests.
Kishor issued a tweet urging caution so that “brotherhood and friendship is not endangered”.