Congress-backed Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani on Monday said serious crimes remained uninvestigated on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s watch while citizens, activists and political rivals were targeted for tweets.
“Gujarat witnessed 22 paper leaks over the last eight to 10 years but no investigation was done; no FIR was registered,” Mevani told a news conference in Delhi.
“At Adani’s Mundra Port, drugs worth Rs 1.75 lakh crore were seized. Huge consignments of narcotics are coming to Gujarat regularly. Ordinary citizens are sent to jail over 10gm of narcotic substances. Has anyone from the Adani group been called for interrogation? Has any FIR been lodged?” he asked.
Mevani, who addressed the news conference at the Congress headquarters, went on: “A BJP woman accused a minister of sexual exploitation and rape. This issue was raised in the Assembly too. Was any inquiry ordered? Was the minister arrested?
“From Dharam Sansads, calls for genocide against Muslims are given every now and then. Has an inquiry been ordered? People are openly saying ‘Goli maro saalon ko…’ (a reference to BJP leaders’ call to shoot anti-CAA protesters) but no FIR is registered.
“But Assam police travelled 2,500km to arrest me for a tweet that asked the Prime Minister to appeal for peace and harmony. Has demanding an appeal for peace from the Prime Minister become a crime?”
Assam police had arrested Mevani from Gujarat on April 20 over a tweet on Modi that contained a reference to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse. After he received bail, he was booked for assaulting and outraging the modesty of a policewoman. He received bail in the second case, too, which a sessions court described as “manufactured”.
On Monday, Mevani alleged that the steps against him were taken at the behest of the Prime Minister’s Office. Both Assam and Gujarat have BJP governments.
“Godse supporters sitting in the Prime Minister’s Office ordered the Assam police to act against me. If Modi was hurt because I called him a Godse follower, let him once say ‘Godse murdabad’ from the ramparts of the Red Fort and this issue will be settled for good,” he said.
“Using a woman police officer to manufacture a case against me was a display of 56-inch cowardice,” he added, obliquely alluding to Modi’s boast about possessing a “56-inch chest”.
“It’s obvious that the BJP wanted to destroy me before the coming Gujarat elections,” Mevani, a Dalit politician expected to play a key role during the year-end Assembly polls in Gujarat, said.
“The court said they (Assam police) manufactured the case to keep me in detention for a longer period. The question is, on whose instructions were Assam police working? They have seized my laptop and the phones of my team members. In the Pegasus (spyware) age, we suspect they would have planted something in our instruments.”
Mevani threatened an agitation in Gujarat from June 1 if the cases against Dalits from Una and minorities from his constituency of Vadgam were not withdrawn.
The Congress-backed Independent MLA had risen to national limelight courtesy his fight for the rights of the Dalit youths assaulted by cow vigilantes in Una, Gujarat, in 2016.
“I can handle my own case but the cases filed against Dalits for that agitation must be withdrawn,” he said.
If not, he went on to suggest, the Congress might call for a state-wide shutdown.
The Congress would be keen on exploiting the Dalit sentiment against Mevani’s arrest. The MLA has himself described his midnight arrest by the Assam police as an attack on Gujarati pride.
The Congress senses that the Patels have moved back to the BJP after their pro-reservation agitation, and has set its sights on forming a rainbow coalition of tribal, OBC, Dalit and minority communities ahead of the Assembly elections.
Although Mevani pledged support to the Congress a few months ago when former Left activist Kanhaiya Kumar joined the party, he has avoided formally joining the Congress as that would force him to relinquish his membership of the Assembly.
