JULY 5- Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi might have been demonised and damned for Ishrat Jahan’s alleged fake encounter in his state, but despite an unprecedented political onslaught the BJP’s 2014 mascot has been fighting back.
Modi chaired the BJP’s strategy meet in the national capital on Thursday which, among other things, decided to launch a counter attack on the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and its alleged political master Congress.
The party has decided to raise the issue of hundreds of fake encounter cases in Congress-ruled states in the past four years. Addressing a press conference earlier in the day, BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi said that between 2002 and 2006 there were 880 encounters, of which only 12 took place in Gujarat.
Lekhi said by calling every encounter in Gujarat as fake and those in Congress-ruled states as genuine, the grand old party only politicised terror.
NHRC data backs BJP claim
BJP’s counter offensive is built around the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) report that has chronicled 555 cases of alleged fake encounters from 2009-10 to 2012-13 (till February 15, 2013) from across the country.
Surprisingly, Modi’s Gujarat is only 17th on the list with eight cases of alleged fake encounters.
Uttar Pradesh tops the list with 138 fake encounters, followed by Manipur (62), Assam (52), West Bengal (35) and Jharkhand (30) as the other top four states.
The fact that two Congress-ruled states — Manipur and Assam — are among the top five trigger-happy states bolsters the BJP’s argument that Ishrat case is being hyped by the CBI at the Congress’s behest for political gains.
Moreover, Uttar Pradesh is being ruled by the Samajwadi Party, which gives outside support to the UPA government. The previous ruling party – Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) – too gives the UPA government outside support.
Even West Bengal is ruled by the Congress’s former ally Trinamool Congress. The Congress was, in fact, a part of the state government till a few months ago. Jharkhand too was being ruled partially by the Congress’s off and on partner Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM).
So, the Congress has some link with the governments even in the remaining three of the top five states where it does not have its own government. And, the BJP knows that the NHRC numbers cannot be disputed even by Modi’s staunchest enemies.
Omar seeks justice for fake encounter victims in J&K
Meanwhile Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, whose state witnessed 26 fake encounters during the same period, also said that the issue was not restricted to Gujarat, but there were much more cases in his state in which victims’ families were still waiting for justice.
However, ignorant of the NHRC’s fake encounter statistics and ally National Conference’s statement, the Congress continued to focus only on Gujarat.
In Jabalpur, Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh accused the BJP of maintaining double standards as far as the CBI was concerned.
“When the CBI acts against a Congress leader, the BJP is happy but when the agency acts in the Ishrat Jahan case, it starts talking of independent inquiries and politicisation of the CBI,” Singh said.
