Our leaders may not hang their heads in shame — we need to hang our heads in shame for tolerating such leaders
The behaviour and the statements of Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Narayan Rane and his son Nilesh, along with their violent supporters, is a cause of concern for law-abiding people of Maharashtra.
Narayan Rane, who is a former Chief Minister of Maharashtra and a former Union Minister, his son Nilesh, a former Member of Parliament stormed to the Rajkot Fort in Malvan, where the statue of Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, erected less than a year ago, fell to the ground and broke into pieces.
The visit of Ranes and their supporters coincided with the protest march of leaders of the parties belonging to the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi, against the fall of the statue. It was clear that the BJP team had come to disrupt the protest by the MVA, as the former refused to follow the requests and instructions of the police.
The Ranes and their supporters blocked the way of the MVA leaders, especially to prevent them from going back. The MVA leaders were thus held hostage, not allowed to go out of the Rajkot Fort, after their protest.
Nilesh Rane was seen violently arguing with and shouting at a senior police officer, who was requesting him to allow the MVA leaders to leave. The Rane supporters also pelted the police with stones and bricks. They beat up at least one male supporter of Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) and a couple of men were seen pulling a flag from the Shiv Sena (UBT) woman supporter who walked into the area occupied by the BJP activists and Rane supporters. The BJP leadership has been selectively shouting hoarse over atrocities against women in non-BJP ruled states, hence it is silent on the way the two of their party workers attacked the woman activist. A part of the peripheral wall of the historic fort was damaged in the melee and Nilesh along with his supporters helped put the stones back in place.
Credit goes to Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and legislator Aditya Thackeray, who appealed to his supporters to remain calm and not fall prey to the provocation by the Rane supporters. If it was not for the appeal, there would have been a violent clash between the two factions.
It was shocking to hear Narayan Rane, referring to the MVA protesters, state that he could enter the house of each one of them and finish them. Such statements reflect a criminal mindset and are dangerous when they come from a senior leader of a party which is in power both in the state and at the Centre.
A threat to kill is a criminal offence and would have invited action if it was made by a leader of any other political party or any other person, but being a leader of the BJP, the state police under Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister Devendra Fadnavis ignored the incendiary statement by Narayan Rane.
It has been proved time and again that as a Home Minister Fadnavis is selectively impotent. Narayan Rane’s younger son, Nitesh, who is a legislator, is aware of this quality of the Home Minister, hence he had told his followers in a public speech some months earlier that they need not worry about police action, as the “Home minister is ours”.
If the Ranes were really concerned or were pained over the collapse of the statue, as leaders of the ruling alliance they should have allowed the Opposition party leaders to carry on with their protest and Rane senior could have met the protesters to assure them that he would take up the matter at the highest level and seek a thorough probe into the incident. That would have given him the mileage that he and most other leaders, irrespective of their party, are seeking from the incident.
Fadnavis on his part has stated that the protests by the Opposition, whether over the fall of the statue or against the sexual assault on the two school girls in Badlapur, is merely politics. Very true, it is politics, just as was the installation of the statue in a short span of time to meet the election dates, in an attempt to woe the voters.
One example is of how the leaders of the ruling and the Opposition parties reacted to the Badlapur crime. With the Bombay High Court banning the bandh called by the MVA, the MVA leaders protested in different parts of Maharashtra condemning the crime against the two school girls, the efforts of the school administration and the police to suppress the matter; and to demand proper action against the culprit as well as the school administration and the police. While this was going on BJP leaders also protested on the same day, but their protest was to condemn the rape and murder of the doctor in far off West Bengal and to demand the resignation of the state’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
These incidents show that for political parties, it is a case of “my victim versus your victim” or “my Shivaji versus your Shivaji”.
The Mughals and all the foreign invaders, against whom Chhatrapati Shivaji fought, must be happy in their graves, because what they could not do to the Marathi king, the hurried decision to install the statue could do. Forget wiping him off, they could not even shatter his confidence and his strength to take the enemy head-on, but as claimed by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, winds with a speed of 45 kmph led to the collapse of the statue, which broke into pieces on hitting the ground.
Our leaders may not hang their heads in shame over such issues — it is time for us to hang our heads in shame for tolerating such leaders.
-- FPJ
