The crucial Malegaon verdict on Thursday has wide-ranging repercussions politically.
The acquittal of all the accused, including former BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit, in the 2008 Malegaon blast case by a special court has given the BJP fresh ammunition to target the Congress, which has been groping in the dark against the ruling party’s charge against it of being a “pro-Muslim” and – by extension – an “anti-Hindu” party.
The Congress has often fallen between two stools in navigating this territory since the BJP’s rise in the 1980s and, on Thursday, the central leadership maintained a telling silence in the wake of the Malegaon judgment.
The 2008 blasts, blamed on accused with links to Hindutva groups, had come amidst a string of terror incidents under the UPA government. The attack in Malegaon was preceded days earlier by the Batla House encounter, in which alleged terrorists linked to the Indian Mujahideen and to several incidents across the country were killed. Two months later followed the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, one of the worst the country has seen.
Even as the government dealt with the attacks, statements by several Congress leaders in their wake landed the UPA government in a sticky situation.
Digvijaya Singh, the Congress general secretary, raised doubts over the Batla House encounter by security agencies, suggesting it was “fake”. In the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, he said he had spoken to Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare hours earlier, and that Karkare had told him he was receiving threats from Hindu extremists. Karkare was at the time heading the investigation into the September 29, 2008, Malegaon blasts.
In 2010, the then Union Home Minister P Chidambaram first used the word “saffron terror”. Addressing an annual conference of DGPs and IGPs, he said: “There is no let-up in the attempts to infiltrate militants into India. There is no let-up in the attempts to radicalise young men and women. Besides, there is the recently uncovered phenomenon of saffron terrorism that has been implicated in many bomb blasts of the past.”
The Congress distanced itself from Chidambaram’s remarks then, saying “terrorism does not have any colour other than black”.
The same year, one of the secret diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks quoted Rahul Gandhi as telling then US Ambassador to India Timothy Roemer during a lunch in 2009 that “the bigger threat (than outfits such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba) may be the growth of radicalised Hindu groups, which create religious tensions and political confrontations with the Muslim community”.
In 2012, then Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid also sparked a row when he said that Sonia Gandhi “wept bitterly” when she was shown images of the Batla House encounter.
Following its rout in 2014 and its struggles to rebuild, the Congress has attempted course-correction, with a section in the party emphasising the need to reach out to Hindus. Rahul Gandhi’s frequent temple visits and assertions of being a “Shiva devotee” are seen as a part of it, as well as the party’s engagement with the Hindutva vs Hinduism narrative.
Manoj C G breaks down these attempts
Trump tariff curveball
The sudden announcement of President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on Indian goods from August 1, with an additional but unspecified “penalty” for its defence and energy imports from Russia has put a lot of stress on the Narendra Modi government.
This move, coming just ahead of an impending trade agreement, could pull down the economy and cast a shadow on India-US ties, experts say. Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, who has served as Finance minister for four terms and was also the Commerce and Industry minister, talks to The Indian Express of the tightrope that India must now walk on the negotiations.
“Negotiating a trade agreement with the United States is not easy. It is painstaking. The big obstacle is that we had — and in many cases still have — is high tax. As a result of that, the trade balance between the United States and India is almost $45 billion in our favour. We can say the same thing about our trade with other countries, where the trade balances in favor of the other country. But that is part of the world of commerce… We will have to deal with it. We do not have to bend over. At the same time, we do not have to be defiant,” says Chidambaram.
Bihar electoral roll revision update
Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Thursday said that political parties and electors will be given one full month to add names of eligible citizens or remove names of those they think are ineligible from the draft electoral rolls of Bihar to be published on August 1.
In a statement to the voters, the CEC said that as part of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls of the state, the draft electoral rolls for Bihar are being published on Friday.
Physical as well as digital copies will also be given to all the recognised political parties in Bihar in all the 38 districts by the district election officers (DEOs), Kumar said.
The CEC’s remarks come amid continuous protests by the opposition parties against the SIR, claiming that it will deny eligible citizens of their to right vote for want of documents.
They also alleged that the local poll machinery in Bihar could be manipulated by the ruling BJP-JD (U) alliance to its benefit.
The protests have disrupted both Houses of Parliament on a daily basis during the ongoing Monsoon session.
Former BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit acquitted in the 2008 Malegaon blast case by a special court. (PTI/Express Photo) 
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