The bugle for Lok Sabha elections has started ringing where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi-led Congress are vying for each other’s blood to seize the office of Lok Kalyan Marg in New Delhi. Amid the buzz, addressing the Karyakarta (volunteers) Mahakumbh in Bhopal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, September 25, launched a vicious attack at the Congress party and said that the party is now being run by some ‘Urban Naxals’ (a term referred to urban handlers of the left-wing extremist in India) who are at the helm of affairs of Congress party from their slogans to rallies.
Hours after the prime minister’s remarks, former president of the Congress party Rahul Gandhi, while addressing a gathering in Raipur said that when the BJP presses a button, the Land, Water and Forests (Jal, Jungle, Jameen) of yours get transferred to Adani. Rahul’s remarks have come despite the fact that the incumbent Congress governments across states have awarded several major projects to Adani.
Urban Naxals are running the Congress Party! pic.twitter.com/sLHFuLg8fy
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 25, 2023
However, the delusion of the Congress party’s national level leadership while taking an anti-corporate stand is not new and similar remarks have also been made in the past, which has ultimately led to the discomfort of state heads who also have to look after the economic liabilities. However, these headlines-grabbing attacks on the big corporate houses who are contributing their much-needed part in the growth of the economy have garnered the praise of left-leaning intellectuals who also sympathises with the left-wing extremist on occasion. On the other hand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, so far, on a number of occasions, has publicly called out the grand old party for leaning towards these activists with references like Urban Naxals.
The tussle between the ideologies has also taken an ugly turn at times where the BJP leaders have repeatedly called out the grand old party for having a soft approach towards these left-leaning groups, some of whom openly take anti-India stand and sympathise with the Maoist cause for instance. This becomes especially alive in Maoist-affected states like Chhattisgarh where the opposition BJP has been continuously alleging the Congress party for going soft over the left wing insurgency and where the extremist outfit has deliberately targeted the BJP functionaries in recent times. However, the Congress leadership has time and again denied any such move of going soft against the extremist group and has cited the BJP’S allegation as politically motivated and baseless.
Now, after the debate over the penetrations of Urban Naxals in the mainstream political sphere of Bharat has once again taken the central stage, let’s delve in the details of the allegations of saffron party and the congress rebuttal to them.
Congress Bharat Jodo Yatra
It all got started in public after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during the Gujarat state elections campaign, while lashing out at the opposition parties, made an appeal to the Vanvasi community to not to fall prey to the Urban Naxals’ sinister campaign against the incumbent state government.
It was then speculated that the prime minister’s remarks were directed to a few notable so-called left-leaning intellectuals and rights activists participating in the Bharat Jodo Yatra. The debate took centre stage again during the George Soros controversy in which the BJP leadership had aggressively engaged in a tug of war with the Congress over the presence of close aides of the business tycoon in the much-hyped Yatra.
Addressing a press conference in the BJP headquarters, the Union Minister for Women and Child Development and senior BJP leader Smriti Irani in June this year had said that “the question that has been left unanswered by the Congress party is when it is clear to every Indian what George Soros intends to do, why is Rahul Gandhi hobnobbing with those who are funded by Soros?”
She further had also pointed out that “It is also evident that this is not the only Soros connection. Even in Bharat Jodo Yatra in Karnataka, the Global vice president of the Open Society Foundation funded by George Soros, was found accompanying Rahul Gandhi.”
Additionally, the Yatra also grabbed the headlines in its mid stages when it got support from the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in its mouthpiece, praised the footwalk and expressed hope from its outcome.
Verbal spat in poll-bound Chhattisgarh
Apart from the ongoing tug of war at the national level the Congress party and the BJP have also been indulged in a verbal spat over the state of violence unleashed by the Maoists and the ruling Congress government response to it in the tribal heartland of Chhattisgarh.
The tussle between the mainstream parties has increased after the Maoists brutally killed as many as three BJP functionaries, including its district vice president of Narayanpur and block president of Usur in Bijapur. Additionally, the Maoists have also threatened BJP leader Bhojraj Nag by dropping pamphlets in Maoist-affected regions of the state, issuing a stern warning to those who chose to work for the saffron party.
Recently, a left-leaning local leader from Mohla Manpur of Chhattisgarh had also made an open appeal in a gathering to stab the saffron party leaders if they dared to come to the tribals region for votes. The development occurred in front of the local Congress leader, following which the state unit of BJP, while slamming the Congress party on its official Twitter handle, wrote that now Congress is the official party of the Naxalites (Maoists).
तो अब नक्सलियों की अधिकारिक पार्टी है कांग्रेस…
मंच से खुलेआम कांग्रेसी नेता द्वारा भाजपा नेताओं की हत्या करने की धमकी दी जा रही है और कांग्रेस के विधायक इसका समर्थन कर रहे हैं।
मोहला-मानपुर में अब तक पाँच भाजपा कार्यकर्ताओं की हत्या हो चुकी है, क्या इसके पीछे कांग्रेसी… pic.twitter.com/U2UlpjC5Cs
— BJP Chhattisgarh (@BJP4CGState) July 31, 2023
Agniveer scheme row and demand for NIA investigation
It is to be noted that earlier, former BJP state unit head Vishnu Deo Sai in a letter to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had asked the agency to take cognisance to a video in which he alleged the Congress MLA from naxal-affected Bijapur constituency, Vikram Mandavi for instigating youths for violent protest in line of what was unfolding in Bihar at that time.
In a letter to the federal agency, the BJP leader had stated that “the statement of Mandavi, who represents a tribal dominated and Naxal affected area, is an attempt to provoke innocent tribals to commit violence. His act is clearly anti-national. The NIA should take suo moto cognisance and investigate Congress’ role in well-planned violence that happened during the protest against Agnipath.”
Later on, adding fuel to the fire, the Communist Party of India (Maoist), in a document made for internal distribution, had claimed that the party’s cadres were actively involved in leading the protest against the ‘Agriculture bills and Agniveer scheme’.
However, the Congress lawmaker from Bijapur, after the allegations labelled against him, categorically denied the allegations and had claimed the video fabricated.
‘Jal, Jungle, Jameen and anti-corporate campaign’
It is to be noted that the Maoists who have disrupted the development of the remote tribal belt across the nation for decades have been hiding behind the hoax acronym of Jal, Jangal Jameen and were been the staunch opponents of any development work in the regions, labelling it an act of pushing corporatisation of the tribal heartland.
Additionally, the Urban handlers of the extremist group, more often referred to as ‘Urban Naxals’ over the years, have also run numerous campaigns justifying the violence by propagating similar theories and terming the communist extremists as the defenders of the Jal, Jungle and Jameen.
However, cutting across the parties, the respective elected governments of the state, including the incumbent Congress government, has repeatedly favored large scale investment to carry out the economical liabilities of the state smoothly.
Now given the fact that the push for development work and generation of employment supported by wide-scale private sector investment which has been yielding fruitful outcomes in the Maoist affected tribal dominated regions. Where the masses are slowly and steadily refraining themselves from the cause of the Maoist violence, it shall not be an exaggeration to say that the Congress leadership should have refrained from choosing such phrases and anti-corporate stand in a state already volatile to the left-wing insurgency. This specifically became true when the former prime minister of his party, Manmohan Singh had once himself termed the Naxal menace as the biggest internal threat to the sovereignty of Bharat.
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