New Delhi: A political storm is brewing in Chhattisgarh over the killings of three BJP workers allegedly by Maoists in separate incidents in less than a week.
The latest killing happened last Saturday when former sarpanch Ramdhar Alami was hacked to death, allegedly by Maoists, in Dantewada district. The BJP alleged that the Bhupendra Baghel-led Congress government was acting in collusion with Maoists to orchestrate killings ahead of assembly elections.
Chhattisgarh BJP chief and Member of Parliament Arun Sao told ThePrint: “These are targeted killings where state agencies are involved with Maoists to eliminate BJP workers. They want to create fear among people before the assembly elections. There is a pattern in (these) killings. Or has the state government surrendered before Maoists?”
He added: “If they cannot put a stop to these killings, they should seek help from the central government. It shows total failure of law and order in the state and the Baghel government should answer why only members of one party are being targeted.”
Sao also raised the issue in the Lok Sabha Monday during the Zero Hour.
BJP’s Dantewada district president Chaitram Atami told ThePrint that the victim of Saturday’s attack, Ramdhar Alami, was the party’s vice-president of the Basur division. “He was with the party for the last 15 years. He was attacked while he was on his way home in Hitameta village.”
Former BJP MLA from Bastar, Kedar Kashyap, who was instrumental in organising a rally against alleged religious conversions after the attack on a church in January, cited lack of security as the reason behind these fatal attacks.
“The state government has reduced the security of many people in the district…there must be 10-15 such people in my district alone who are provided security, maybe every alternate week. Maoists may have noticed this lapse and killed our workers but it is time to find out why the government has failed in protecting BJP workers,” he said.
The other two killings in February were of Sagar Sahu, BJP’s deputy chief of Narayanpur district, who was shot dead at his home by two suspected Maoists on 10 February, and Neelkanth Kakem, BJP divisional head of Bijapur district, who died after three alleged Maoists stabbed him in Bijapur district on 5 February.
The attack on Alami last Saturday came hours after BJP national president J.P. Nadda, who was on a tour of the state, visited Narayanpur to console Sahu’s family.
During his visit, Nadda told reporters, “This shows the law and order situation here. I was told that Sahu had alerted the police about a possible threat to his life but they did not act on it. BJP workers are being targeted under the current government. We lost three colleagues within a month.”
Meanwhile, Baghel reportedly told media in Raipur on Sunday that Maoists had given up. He further said that Maoists who used to attack from the front have now changed their strategy, they go to someone’s home, shoot them and run away. This, the chief minister added, means they have become weak.
According to Baghel, 600 villages in the state are free from the Maoist threat, an achievement of security forces. He further said that he had instructed the DGP to hold a meeting of all police superintendents posted in Maoist-affected areas and instruct them to ensure adequate security measures.
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Tug of war in Bastar
Assembly elections are due in Chhattisgarh in November but Bastar, which is tribal-dominated and has Maoist presence as well, has become a battlefield after these killings. Bastar has 12 assembly segments. In the 2018 assembly elections, BJP’s Bheema Mandavi won the Dantewada seat, that falls in Bastar, while the rest went to the Congress. However, Mandavi was killed in a bomb attack by Maoists in 2019 and the Congress won the subsequent bypoll.
This region also has two Lok Sabha seats — the Congress holds the Bastar seat while the BJP holds Kanker. Nadda’s rally in Jagdalpur Saturday and a visit to the Danteshwari temple are believed to be aimed at keeping a hold on the region.
The recent killings in the region can give a new dimension to politics here. The state has 29 Scheduled Tribe (ST)-reserved seats, 10 Scheduled Caste (SC)-reserved seats, and 51 general seats. The Congress is banking on reservation by raising quota for tribals. The state assembly has passed a Bill to give STs a 32 per cent reservation, SCs 13 per cent, Other Backward Classes 27 per cent, and the Economically Weaker Section 4 per cent, taking the overall reservation to 76 per cent. The Bill is still pending with the Governor for clearance.
Meanwhile, the BJP, which has been raising the religious conversion issue to make its presence felt in Bastar and other tribal-dominated constituencies, is not going to let the issue of alleged targeted Maoist killings die down. MLA Kashyap told ThePrint, “We are going to hold protests outside residences of Congress lawmakers in the region beginning 20 February. We will also hold statewide protests over various issues but targeted killings of our workers need to be addressed.”
Another BJP leader of Bastar district told ThePrint on condition of anonymity that “the BJP is trying to wrest this area from the Congress by organising civil protests on religious conversions. The Maoists might be trying to make the most of the situation.”
In the first week of January, some policemen were injured and a church was vandalised after a protest meeting over alleged religious conversions turned violent in Narayanpur, charging the political atmosphere further. The protest was led by BJP leaders such as its former Narayanpur district president Narayan Markam, and the current district chief Roop Sai Salam and some party leaders had to be detained.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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