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The BJP on Saturday will organise statewide protests in Karnataka condemning last week’s Belagavi incident in which a woman from a tribal community was stripped and tied to a pole after her son allegedly eloped with a girl from their village.
BJP president J P Nadda has set up a five-member all-woman fact-finding committee to visit the village where the incident occurred on December 10. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has criticised the BJP’s attempt to mobilise on the issue, saying, “Nadda’s sudden awakening and his attempt to stir up this case four days after the incident indicate a political motive rather than genuine concern for women.”
The context: The BJP’s loss in Karnataka was as much due to infighting in the party as it was because of anti-incumbency. For months, the party remained rudderless in the state, without a leadership team and bereft of issues on which to attack the Congress that had won a massive mandate.
It has been only a few weeks since the party got a new leadership team led by former CM B S Yediyurappa’s son B Y Vijayendra. This incident now has provided it with an opportunity to corner the Siddaramaiah government over the state of law and order in Karnataka and win back some of the Scheduled Tribe (ST) votes that deserted the party in the Assembly elections. The BJP failed to win any of the 15 ST-reserved seats in the state polls as the Congress won 14 and one went to the Janata Dal (Secular). The BJP has to rectify this ahead of the Lok Sabha elections and also peg back the Congress among women voters. The Congress won more than half of the 52 Assembly constituencies in Karnataka where women voters outnumber men.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday is set to virtually launch the Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra in five states that recently concluded Assembly elections: Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Rajasthan and Mizoram. The yatra was delayed in these states after the Election Commission barred the programme while elections were underway over complaints from a retired IAS officer and the Congress, as reported by Divya A and Damini Nath.
The PM flagged off the two-month-long Yatra on November 15, the birth anniversary of freedom fighter and tribal leader Birsa Munda from his birthplace in Khunti, Jharkhand. It is set to conclude ahead of Republic Day. In Himachal Pradesh, BJP president J P Nadda will attend an event for the yatra besides participating in a roadshow and meeting with party workers in Mandi district.
In Maharashtra, the clash between the two Shiv Sena parties is expected to further escalate, this time, over the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP). On Saturday, the Shiv Sena (UBT) is planning a march from Dharavi to the office of the Adani Group to protest against the government’s decision to “unfairly favour” the company while awarding the contract, as reported by Vallabh Ozarkar.
Uddhav, who said his party won’t allow the state government to “gift Mumbai to Adani”, has questioned the process through which the contract was awarded to the company led by Gautam Adani. The Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the BJP have labelled Uddhav “anti-development” and accused him of trying to prevent poor people from getting housing.
In Himachal Pradesh, members of the Hatti community led by the Kendriya Hatti Samiti are set to protest against the state government’s delay in implementing the group’s Scheduled Tribe (ST) status. Though the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Second Amendment) Act, 2023, granting the ST status to the Hatti community was enacted four months ago, the state government has yet to implement it.
Kendriya Hatti Samiti general secretary Kundan Singh Shastri claimed the delay was due to pressure from a Cabinet minister with an “anti-Hatti stance.” Shastri called upon Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu of the Congress to intervene in the matter and grant the Hattis tribal status immediately.
The Hattis are a close-knit community and got their name from their tradition of selling homegrown vegetables, crops, meat, wool etc. at small markets called “haats” in towns. The roughly three lakh members of the Hatti community are concentrated in the state’s Sirmaur district.
— With PTI inputs
