SHILLONG: The political mercury is spiralling ahead of the Assembly polls in the state and parties are not loath to follow the eye-for-an-eye principle if their interests are harmed or image tarnished in any way. A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released a chargesheet against the Congress, the latter has slammed the saffron party saying the accusations levelled in the chargesheet were merely to sully the image of India’s grand old party ahead of the polls.
Interacting with reporters, Congress spokesperson Ronnie V Lyngdoh said it was the Congress government that created more districts, besides several new blocks and administrative units, for the faster delivery of social goods to the people with an eye on ensuring overall development.
Lyngdoh pointed out that militancy had been contained with the state government creating its own Special Force (SF-10) to ensure that the state did not have to depend on the Centre for forces since the Union government often withdraws forces after an emergency blows over thereby giving militants the opportunity to regroup.
“The Special Force (SF-10) is managed by our youth; so how can the BJP say we have failed to create jobs,” Lyngdoh asked while maintaining that the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre has nothing to show in terms of employment generation and is hence trying to mislead the people.
Slamming Union Tourism Minister KJ Alphons, Lyngdoh said the saffron party often accuses the Congress of following the politics of appeasement, although it was the BJP which sought to appease the people of the state by offering the Rs 70-crore sop to churches – a strategy to win votes by splurging moolah.
“They think the people of Meghalaya have no value. The value of the people is much more than Rs 70 crore,” he said, adding that the BJP wants to divide the people of Meghalaya and the nation. “If the state and the country break apart, the BJP and their partner NPP will have to shoulder the blame,” he added.
Asserting that the people of the state should reject communal parties like the NPP and BJP, he said NPP leader Conrad Sangma is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the people by saying that he has no truck with the BJP.
Meanwhile, a statement released by the Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee on Friday said that although the BJP keeps harping on change, the most “visible ‘change’ it has brought about is the politics of hate and divisiveness among the different communities of the country.”
“In the last four years of the Modi government, India has witnessed an alarming rise of hyper nationalism and vigilante groups like ‘gau rakshaks’ who attack minorities and target people suspected of harming cows and consuming beef. Such acts have vitiated the atmosphere of harmony that India had as a secular nation. The BJP has brought the ‘change’ of alarming fear psychosis among the minorities,” it declared.
The statement also highlighted the “unprecedented attack on churches in BJP-ruled states like Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.”
“Churches where families with young children go to pray have been increasingly targeted,” it maintained.
Accusing the Modi government of giving a fillip to mobocracy by nurturing vigilante groups, the Congress zeroed in on the rise in hate crimes during the BJP regime, fuelled by hate speeches delivered by the likes of Yogi Adityanath and Shakshi Maharaj.
“Yogi Adityanath had said in a speech that ‘we are preparing for a battle of religions’… but neither are these leaders pulled up nor any action taken against them,” the statement said, adding that the PM has “rewarded” them by giving them “positions of authority”.
In a vitriolic attack on the BJP, the state unit of the Congress maintained that the saffron party can be charged with promoting “the politics of hate that destroys the social fabric of the country.”
“The Congress will leave no stone unturned to see that the BJP will not succeed in its mission to ‘change’ Meghalaya through the politics of hate,” the statement declared.
