The chargesheet submitted last week by the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), detailing the alleged involvement of Hindu outfits and army officials in acts of terror including the Malegaon blasts, could significantly rearrange the political scenario in the run-up to Lok Sabha polls.
The chargesheet appears to have forced the BJP on to the backfoot; the Congress and the NCP are all set to exploit ?Hindu terror? at the hustings. The Shiv Sena, however, has decided to stick to its aggressive pro-Hindutva posture.
BJP leaders who were earlier defending the accused persons have changed their tune. ?We were objecting only to the torture of the Sadhvi (Pragya Singh Thakur) in police custody,? says a senior BJP functionary. ?If anyone has committed a crime, the law will take its own course.? There is confusion within the party on how to react to the chargesheet officially. Sources point out that while hardliners feel the party should continue reiterating its support for the implicated Hindu outfits, the moderates are against it. The BJP has pan-Indian stakes, they point out.
The Sena, a maverick party with stakes only in Maharashtra, has refused to change its position. ?We are firm on our stand,? says Rajya Sabha member and spokesperson of the Sena, Sanjay Raut. ?Just because a chargesheeet has been filed against some Hindus, we won?t change our stand. Chargesheets have been filed against so many people… a chargesheet was also filed against Sanjay Dutt.?
The Sena, he says, is not bothered about how other parties would react. ?Recently the NCP took a person like Baba Bodke into its fold?Who is going to blame whom?? he asks. (Baba Bodke, a notorious criminal from Pune, was admitted to the NCP by Ajit Pawar last week. Bodke was asked to resign after the controversy that ensued in the media.)
The NCP, on the other hand, feels that ?secular? parties now have an edge. ?We don?t think that 26/11 will become a poll issue. We (the Congress-led UPA) have won assembly elections held in several states after 26/11 and have done well,? says deputy chief minister and NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal. ?On the contrary, the ATS has concrete evidence against Hindu fundamentalists.? The Congress, too, claims the ATS chargesheet may trump the anti-incumbency factor.
Ever since the ATS turned up evidence allegedly implicating some Hindu outfits, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, a swami and some serving and retired army officials, in the Malegaon probe, the politics around it has picked up pace.
In the immediate aftermath, BJP leaders like L K Advani and Rajnath Singh took the view that Hindus could never indulge in such activities. The Shiv Sena came out openly in support of the Sadhvi and the other accused. With Bal Thackeray expressing solidarity with the accused persons, the BJP, too joined in the campaign against the government, alleging fabrication of charges and torture of the accused.
The Sena launched a scathing attack against the ATS and questioned the integrity of its chief, Hemant Karkare. The party, in its mouthpiece Saamna, abused him for his alleged bias against Hindus. The BJP followed suit.
On the other side of the political divide, on November 14, 2008, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, the then chief minister of Maharashtra Vilasrao Deshmukh and other ?secular? leaders organised a rally at Govandi, a predominantly Muslim locality in Northeast Mumbai, to assure the minorities that their parties would protect them, ?come what may?.
But the death of Karkare and his colleagues in encounters with terrorists on 26/11 redrew the contours of the politics around the probe. Post 26/11, even the Shiv Sena saluted the martyrs, blaming the ruling politicians and senior bureaucrats for their deaths.
