Vice-president Jagdeep Dhankhar’s stand that Trinamul Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee mimicking him was an insult to the farmers and the Jat community has prompted the Congress to ask whether invoking one’s caste and community to instigate unrest in the society is desirable in politics.
Congress leaders confronted Dhankhar citing several recent examples of far more grievous insults to the Jats and farmers which were not used to whip up passions on the basis of identity. Though President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi also sided publicly with Dhankhar on the issue, both of them had remained silent over the instances the Congress’s Jat leader, Randeep Surjewala, mentioned on Wednesday.
Surjewala wondered aloud: “When 700 farmers died while protesting outside Delhi for over a year and the BJP described them as terrorists, Naxalites, anarchists, wasn’t that an insult? It was Rahul Gandhi who demanded a resolution in the Lok Sabha on the death of 700 protesting farmers but the Modi government and Speaker Om Birla paid no heed. Barbed wires were put up and nails were planted on the road to stop the farmers from entering Delhi. Farmers were called Pakistani and Chinese agents but that was not hyped up as an insult.”
Surjewala recalled a far more heinous crime that had injured the nation’s conscience — a Union minister’s son deliberately crushing farmers under the wheels of his speeding vehicle. While Modi protected the minister despite vociferous calls to sack him, Dhankhar, who was Bengal governor at that time, didn’t raise his voice against it. Surjewala also asked what these people were doing when award-winning wrestlers, mostly Jats, were sitting on the streets of Delhi demanding action against BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh in cases of alleged sexual harassment.
Surjewala said: “Pad ki garima jaati se nahin, kartavya bodh se hoti hai (The dignity of office is about commitment to duty, not caste).”
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said: “I am not allowed to speak in the Rajya Sabha. I can’t say it is because I am a Dalit. Such hype on caste and community to instigate people should not be done.”
Sonia Gandhi, addressing party MPs as the chairperson of the Congress Party in Parliament, said: “Democracy has been strangulated by this government. Never before have so many Opposition Members of Parliament been suspended from the House, and that too, simply for raising a perfectly reasonable and legitimate demand. All that the Opposition asked for was a statement to be made by the home minister on the extraordinary events of the 13th of December. There are no words to describe the arrogance with which this request was treated.”
She added: “What happened on December 13 (Parliament breach) is inexcusable and cannot be justified. It took four days for the Prime Minister to address the nation and express his views on the incident, and he did so outside Parliament. By doing so, he clearly indicated his disdain for the dignity of the House and his disregard for the people of our country....”
Rahul Gandhi said, half intended towards the media: “Who insulted the vice-president, how? MPs were sitting there. I took a video. That’s in my phone. The media is showing what happened. Modi is saying. We didn’t say anything. 150 MPs were kicked out. The media is not discussing that. No discussion on Adani. France is saying India is not cooperating in investigation, that’s not being debated. No discussion on unemployment.”
