‘BJP has lost right to talk on 1984 anti-Sikh riots’

When police opened fire on students protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) at the Jamia Millia Islamia University on Sunday, it was a clear indication that the situation is beyond the control of the Central government, said the editorial in the Saamna on Wednesday. This act of cruelty by Delhi Police on citizens is comparable to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by the British. Did the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) now have any right to speak about the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the Sena mouthpiece questioned.

Who needs the guidance of the opposition in Maharashtra in handling the situation due to the CAA in the state, when it was clearly unable to handle the Bhima-Koregaon riots while in power, the editorial asked. The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government was more concerned about the 11 crore people in the state rather than the CAA, the article said. The new government had promises to keep and wanted to change the fortunes of the state and if the opposition disagreed about this course of action, it could move to another state, the editorial suggested. Further, it said, once again, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had exhorted citizens to keep the peace and blamed the violence on Pakistan. On the one hand, the government brags about surgical strikes on that country and on the other hand, it blames them for the current situation in ours and this hypocrisy is unacceptable. In the midst of this chaos, the BJP has been raking up the issue of the insult to Savarkar. Savarkar was a great revolutionary and who had stopped the BJP from giving him the Bharat Ratna in the last last five years, the article wondered and went on to say, instead of shedding crocodile tears for Savarkar, the least the government could do was to explain to the people why the nation was burning over the CAA issue.