Congress rolls out offensive in Rajasthan as BJP makes Kanhaiya Lal killing a poll issue

Apart from the PM, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma and BJP state president C P Joshi, among others, have raised the killing.

Earlier, on November 9, addressing a rally in Udaipur, Modi called the killing a “terror incident” and said it happened as Rajasthan had a Congress government “which sympathises with terrorists”.

Until then, the Congress top leadership had refrained from joining the issue. But, a day after the PM’s meeting, the Congress general secretary in-charge of communications, Jairam Ramesh, addressed a press conference in Udaipur, while Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot lashed out at the BJP at back-to-back events, on November 10 and 12, directly blaming the party for the murder of Kanhaiya Lal.

“Kanhaiya Lal ka murder karwane waaley kaun log they? BJP ke log they (Who were the people who had Kanhaiya Lal murdered? It were the BJP people),” Gehlot said, adding “ismein kayi raaz hain (there are many mysteries to the case)”.

Pointing out that the accused had been arrested in a separate case “four-five days” before Kanhaiya Lal was killed, and bailed out by BJP members, the CM wondered if Modi had been “properly briefed” on the issue.

The CM also talked about how, while the Rajasthan Police had caught the accused within four-five hours, “even then the NIA took over the case that night itself”. “We did not mind it because there could have been an international conspiracy… Now the NIA should reveal the progress in the case,” the CM said, adding that if the Special Operations Group of the Rajasthan Police was involved, the status of the case would have been known and a challan filed by now.

Gehlot also alleged the case was being “intentionally stretched” so that the BJP can make an issue out of it in the elections. “Maybe, he (Modi) is so worried about the (political) atmosphere in Rajasthan that he has become frustrated and is speaking this kind of language,” he said, adding that Modi should not “provoke people in the name of religion”.

The Congress has linked one of the accused, Riyaz Atari alias Mohammad Riyaz, to senior BJP leader Gulab Chand Kataria, who is now Assam Governor, with Rajasthan’s MoS (Home) Rajendra Singh Yadav claiming that Riyaz had been Kataria’s “polling agent”.

Citing images and social media posts of Riyaz Atari with Kataria, the former Home Minister, the Congress had said that Riyaz was an “active member” of the BJP.

After the murder on June 28, the initial FIR in the case was filed at the Dhanmandi Police Station in Udaipur the next day. Hours later, the NIA took over the case and lodged an FIR.

The NIA submitted a chargesheet in court in December last year, implicating 11 suspects, including two Pakistani nationals.

In September, two months ahead of the elections, the Gehlot government relaxed existing service rules in Rajasthan to allot government jobs to two people who had helped the police nab the accused in the Kanhaiya Lal murder case.

After the killing, the CM had met Kanhaiya Lal’s family and announced a compensation of Rs 50 lakh for the family along with government jobs for two of his sons.