By D.N. Singh
‘Beta kisi ka bhi ho’ — a good cracking of the whip from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But, had he been similarly upfront little earlier that could have saved the Bharatiya Janata Party from many such smudges caused by leaders like Akash Vijayvargiya, son of Kailash Vijayvargiya of the BJP.
Whether beating the government officials with a cricket bat or bashing a women in public by another lawmaker of the BJP, the saffron brigades’ history, by now, is replete with such incidents when its leaders chose to take law into their hands.
Today, it was for the first time, perhaps, the Prime Minister was so critical and did sound aggrieved. Had he been so earlier, the rots unleashed by several leaders from the BJP would not have sullied the party’s image.
In the past, many such actions, either through physical highhandedness or perfidious utterances many leaders in Indian politics kept the people miffed. And it was very rare that the party central leadership or even the Prime Minister, had shown their displeasure with the required disdain.
What had remained the normal practice was the NDA government’s bare self and unapologetic attitude keeping the common man stalked by apprehensions only. Whether physical assaults or mental annihilation through threats, it is all the same that poses danger for a system called democracy.
The act of Sanjay Fadnavis, a cousin of the incumbent Maharastra chief minister Debendra Fadnavis, allegedly insulting and threatening an advocate and activist, Abhiyan Barahtel, in recent times of dire consequences must not have got erased from public memory. Which Barahtel had interpreted as ‘criminal intimidation’ in his complaint before the authorities. But nothing has come out so far.
There are such elements in every party when political leaders are seen suffering from bankruptcy of common sense or foresight. Whether deliberate or slip of tongue but, such aggression are outcomes of pure arrogance of power.
Now, it is a case before the Prime Minister that he must take with the seriousness it deserves and punish Akash Vijayvargiya by suspending him from the BJP.
