Turf war

Turf war

As Chief Ministers deny entry to Oppn leaders in their territory, it questions the spirit of democracy.

Just a couple of days after Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel was denied entry into Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri, he sought to make it a tit-for-tat moment when a BJP delegation led by leader of Opposition Dharamlal Kaushik was denied entry into Kawardha while other party leaders, Ajay Chandrakar and Shivratan Sharma, were stopped by the police on the outskirts of Kawardha on Thursday as they tried to visit the area where violent clashes between communities had broken out. This comes as no surprise after Baghel was detained by the UP police for staging a dharna (sit-in) at the Lucknow airport on Tuesday; in what seemed perhaps the first time when a sitting Chief Minister was received this way. This turf war between India’s two major political parties, or two ideologies per se, is exactly what “democracy” speaks against. The right to dissent, which has been portrayed as “anti-national” in recent times, is one thing but stopping the Opposition leaders from showing empathy to victims’ kin — even if the empathy is politically driven — is an all-time low for any party in power. What’s more absurd is to follow it up with examples from history and citing similar authoritarian measures as justification.

Briefly put, ‘democracy’ is the ultimate sufferer while the Constitution stands at the receiving end of this absolute mockery. The fourth pillar, too, has failed to give due attention to what’s in the interest of the world’s largest and most complex democracy. The desperate measures by the BJP to protect its vote bank, and the Congress’s final swing at penetrating it just ahead of the Assembly polls, have stirred a political buzz and brought the ‘grand old party’ back in the race. Though the debate whether the Congress, the frontrunner Opposition party, has gathered some traction for the upcoming polls remains to be settled. The BJP’s strategy, meanwhile, seems to be to hush up the Lakhimpur Kheri incident and pretend as if it never happened. It’s hurtful that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who “completed” 20 years as the head of a Government on Thursday, has been too busy to show solidarity to the kin of the farmers who were mowed down by an SUV in the incident. The BJP’s idea of democracy needs a reality check and that very much lies in the hands of the Opposition, for now.